We’ll Get Through This
by AlanAlexHolc
Summary: This is unexpected. In a world where Alex the Lion never made it to New York as a cub. Where he instead finds himself sold to a roadside zoo. There he meets a young tiger cub who, as time passes, becomes his closest companion. Together, they create an inseparable bond and are eventually rescued and sent to New York. The two, with new friends along the way, embark in new adventures.
1. A Rough Start

It was dark in the box, very dark. All he could see was nothing but the murky blackness that enveloped his small body in a chilling, suffocating blanket. He did not know where he was or how long he had been put in this box, and that scared him. He was very scared.

The images in his head couldn't stop playing over and over again, and he couldn't have stopped them even if he wanted to. And he desperately wanted to.

He remembered how he had been in the grasslands, playing with Daddy. Daddy was talking to another lion when the cub started to dance and play with a butterfly. He remembered the butterfly. He liked butterflies.

But then there was a knot, and attached to the knot was a rope. Being the young, curious cub he was he found the knot to be quite entertaining and trailed after it as it dragged through the dirt, tempting him more and more to follow. And when it stopped, he pounced on top of it like Daddy had shown him and playfully batted the bundled tie.

Long, eerie shadows casted over him, so he looked up to see tall, funny-looking creatures towering over him like giants. They spoke in a language he could not understand and smelt foreign. They were very frightening.

One reached down and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck painfully, holding him high in he air. The creatures crowded him and he whimpered as they gawked at him with their small, white eyes.

Then they suddenly threw him into a wooden box, he believed they called it a "crate", and slammed the top closed with loud banging noises. Head swiveling side to side, he didn't know what was happening. Why was he in this "crate" and where were these creatures taking him? He came to the conclusion that the creatures were bad, very bad.

He peeked through a small hole that let him see outside and called out the only name that came to mind. Daddy.

The floor gave a jarring jolt and he was suddenly moving. He was moving away from the grasslands! He was moving away from Daddy!

Where was Daddy? He needed Daddy!

He swerved violently, causing the lion cub to fall on his tail, but immediately went back onto his feet. The outside changed into a green foliage and moist, brown dirt paths.

Mama had told him that this place was called the jungle, and to never go there for it was dangerous. The kit did not know the meaning of the word "dangerous", but he did know that it was not good.

He screamed out for his father, crying for help. He did not know what else to do.

A blur of brown and black flashed past the hole's left and something large and heavy fell on top of the crate, shaking it violently. By the familiar scent and size, it was a lion. But the cub knew that it was more than just any lion. It was Daddy!

Daddy looked through the hole and the cub said his name again. He heard him talk in Daddy's voice and he had Daddy's green eyes.

It was Daddy! He was here to save him!

But then there was a click and Daddy stopped. The cub watched as a loud BANG went off and the male lion suddenly went rolling, his body flailing as it hit the hard dirt.

He called out his father's name, screeching the word until his throat was raw but he knew that his dad was not getting up. Daddy never went down like that, not unless he was hurt really bad.

The cub pressed his back against the splintered wall and squeaked out a throaty, strangled sound, tears welling in his wide eyes.

After some time, the ride got smoother and it became silent. The cub kept his gaze on the hole, waiting for someone to come for him or anyone to come for him. But no one did.

So like the scared, young kit he was, he crawled to a corner and curled himself into a ball. Although his eyes were full of impatient tears that were on the brink of trickling down his round cheeks, he refused let them.

His father once told him to never cry, for crying showed weakness and cowardice. But the cub was not fully aware of this, and all he knew was that Daddy never cried so he wouldn't either.

Time flew by. The cub did not know how long he had been stuck inside the crate. He was very hungry and thirsty, and was weak from the lack of these necessities.

The ride did not just consist of the bumpy road that he had first taken on this journey. Later on, he was hauled into one of the creature's arms and was put into a large cave-like room. Awhile later, his empty stomach twisted as the ground beneath him swerved. It was a sickening feeling and he did not like it. Then he was taken out of the small room full of more boxes how many more days later and put back onto the jumpy, nauseating trip he had experienced before.

At this point, the lion kit was very tired and very weak. His insides were as hollow as log and his eyes were heavy, but sleep would not come.

He had never slept without his mother. Mama would always kiss him goodnight before patting his head in that comforting, loving way she always did it.

Oh, how he missed Mama! He wanted his mother more than anything in the entire world. But he did not have the will to call out for her. He had already done so many times before and still she did not show up. It broke his tiny heart every time.

Finally, they stopped. The ride had stopped and the cub lifted his head to the hole again to see what was going on. In a few short minutes, something picked up the crate and began to walk into what the cub could best describe as a sort of den. It was like a big square with an entrance that resembled a slab of wood with a metal knob.

They entered and took a series of turns. Left, right, right, left, another right.

The inside was like nothing the young kit had ever witnessed before in his short life. Wired walls popped out from every side, containing other animals such as himself. He couldn't name them for he had never seen them before, but noticed that they all rose to their feet shakily and snarled at the creatures that held the cub. He wondered why they showed their anger like that. Daddy told him that most did so when one was challenged or angry.

They must be very angry then, the cub thought to himself.

Another slab of wood was opened and they entered a small, dim room. A single square hole filtered with a pale blue glow barred with thick grey bars, the only source of light. The crate was set down and the creature above cracked open the top and snagged out the cub.

The said cub had no strength left in his fragile body to fight the superior creature that so easily carried him. He was completely powerless.

He set the kit down onto a flat, cold surface and the group of strange creatures left, closing the door with a grating creak.

The cub stood still even when the presence of the creatures was long gone. And although he was alone, he felt that there was something else in the room. He could feel it.

A low growl emitted suddenly and the cub stiffened. He searched for the source of the noise until he was met by a pair of glowing red and yellow eyes. The fur on the back of his neck stood on end as it crept towards him, stalking the cub like his father had tried to teach his son to no avail. He stood, frozen to the spot, and watched in complete and utter angst for what lied ahead of him.

What emerged from the shadows was something he did not expect in the least. Actually, it was a someone. A young kit appeared. It resembled him greatly, except that it was orange with long black stripes lining its body. Its head was round and angular, dotted in mystical colored markings. Its tail did not puff out in a tuff of brown hair like his, but instead receded to a near white. He could tell that it had to be older than him, but not by much.

It was the first to speak.

"Are you afraid?" It asked. From the feminine voice, it sounded to be a girl.

Out of instinct, the cub shook his head no, but the critter bared her sharp teeth menacingly.

"Well you should be. I am Tigress, Tigress the monster." She nearly bellowed. The cub almost quivered at her bout, but couldn't help but see that she had said it in a sad way, like she didn't want to be a monster.

And in his mind, he knew she wasn't. Monsters were scary and mean. And although she had not been nice to him, he knew that she was not a monster like she said she was.

The striped being crept to the side of the room to lay down with her back to him.

Unfortunately, the cub, dear readers, was not one to say no to his curiosity. It was both a con and a pro that he was so naturally interested in the unknown, and he yielded it merrily.

And so he went after the girl in an attempt to make her acquaintance. She furrowed her brows when she found him peering over her hunched shoulder.

"Go away!" She barked out and moved to another place in the room, but the lion kit followed like a moth to a flame relentlessly.

He would not give up, and it did not become evident until a long half hour of her trying to rid herself of the new animal. So finally, she turned to him and stared at his all too wide eyes in a frustrated manner.

"What do you want?" She asked. He did not answer, only sat down with his tail wrapped around his legs and paws set in front of him. He looked back at her intently, and this startled the mysterious cub greatly.

She had never met anyone like him. As far as she could tell, there was no getting rid of this one and for a short moment, she realized she didn't want to scare him away like she had with the others. The way he had openly traced her steps, despite her heated fit, had made her come to terms that he was indeed not afraid of her.

And she liked it. She liked to see that she was not scary in someone else's eyes, and that led her to see him in a whole new light.

She gave a soft sigh. "I'm guessing they took you too, huh?" With a curt nod of his head, he confirmed that it was so. "Yeah, me too." She said.

She began to think and just like that, she decided to maybe get to know him. If she couldn't get rid of him before, she wouldn't be able to later. She was going to spend a bit of time with him, from the looks of it, so she might as well learn a few things about him now.

"Well, I think we're going to start living together. That's what the people want." The kit cocked his head to the side, his brows quirked in confusion.

"Oh, yeah. You're new. You don't know what this is." She said, reading his thoughts. "That's okay. I'll tell you later." The lion cub gave a small smile and the other felt something warm blossom in her chest, something she had not felt in a long time.

For as long as she could remember being there, she had felt very angry and lonely. When the other little ones had met her, they had not hidden their fear of the young feline. So she became upset and started to chase them away.

So to see that this one had shown no intentions of running away because of her appearance made her believe that possibly he would be willing to stay. Maybe even become her friend.

"What's you name?" She asked in a much lighter tone. The lion's eyes lit up, the azure orbs sparkling in the dimness. In a quiet voice, he said his very first words to the tiger cub.

"Alakay. I am Alakay." The orange cat returned his smile with her own and repeated her own name, more kindly than last time.

"I'm Tigress."


	2. Our Salvation

The next few months were ones that the two new friends would have rather wished never happened. But then again, the ending was much happier then they expected.

After their first encounter, Tigress explained how and why he was there. That this gang of creatures known as "poachers" had snagged him while they were hunting exotic animals like tigers and lions. If the animals were too young to be killed for their furs, such as himself, they were sold to roadside zoos where other people came in to see them. They would also be sold as pets to the more wealthy and held if a person was willing to pay the fee.

Alakay was very unsure of how he should've reacted. He certainly was very upset because he realized he would never see his family again. And he was now being forced to be held by strangers in a place that was too small and too strict for him to roam around freely.

But he was glad he had met Tigress. As far as he could tell, she was the closest thing he had to a friend. And he soon noticed that he was to her, too.

The humans, as Tigress called them, only let them two be together. They were never allowed to interact with other animals of either their own species or another. But that was okay with the lion cub. He didn't mind Tigress' company.

It was only later on when he saw why this place was so bad. Miserable even. He and Tigress had grown a bit about two weeks in and the room was starting to shrink. When the two felines become fully grown, the room will barely fit them, let alone have them to move around in such tight quarters.

And the food was disgusting. At first they were both fed cold bottles of milk until their teeth started to get longer and sharper. The people switched their meals to hunks of meat that was unsatisfactory in the lion kit's mind. Unlike the meat his mother usually caught, it was not fresh and smelt funny. Usually it was diced up and served in small proportions. He became accustomed to sleeping on an empty stomach.

And when they were nearing their teens, that's when everything went downhill.

At this point, Tigress and Alakay were the best of friends. When they weren't being showcased and swaddled in sweaty hands, they were shuttered in their shared room and played with balls of twine. Tigress taught him how to use his claws and teeth that she often wielded against the humans, refusing to hide her dislike at the people who tried to hold her.

One day, when Tigress successfully bit a young human male on the arm she was taken away and didn't return for a full day. Alakay waited for hours, pacing back and forth across the room, scratching the bottom of the door for any sign of his friend's return. And when she was brought back, the moon had risen high in the sky and the lion kit was struggling to keep his eyes open. The second Tigress was set down, Alakay pounced on her playfully to finally have some fun with her. But she remained still.

He thought to himself, "Why doesn't she want to play? Tigress loves to play."

He circled around her curled form until he came face to face with the crying tiger cub. Her furry cheeks were tear-streaked and her eyes were bloodshot. She sniffled as she avoided his gaze, even when he nuzzled her head with his nose.

Alakay wasn't sure what to do at the moment. He knew that she had been punished, probably swatted on the head or deprived of meals. He himself had been a victim of these cruel punishments. But never before had he seen her so upset this time. It must've been worse.

Like a seed sprouting from the dirt into a young sapling, an idea formed until it grew into a large oak tree filled with spritely green leaves.

Puffing out his chest, the young cat stood to his feet and began to sway his arms and stomp his feet. He flapped his ears goofily and cooed loudly to grab the tiger's attention. She couldn't suppress the grin that gradually played on her lips as he spun wildly.

Alakay loved to dance. He had the energetic spirit and grace of a dancer. He was just so naturally coordinated with his body that it impressed the striped cat, especially when considering his age. And although she herself had never shown any interest in the activity, she found great joy in watching her friend. And what made it all the more special was how he did it for her and only her.

As the lion cub twirled again and again and fell down dizzily, Tigress giggled. He beamed with pride at making her laugh.

"Thank you." She said, her voice raspy. To express his gratitude he laid down and pressed his tiny little body to hers, tucking his head under her chin. Within minutes, the two were sound asleep, hearts beating against the other in unison. They were cold and hungry, but happy nonetheless.

Tigress didn't know it then, but that was the night when she realized that she needed Alakay. He was the only one who understood her misery and anger, her lose and her pain. He was her one true friend.

As weeks turned into months, the two felines had grown a significant amount. No longer did they drink baby bottles of milk and play with balls of twine. But instead they practiced fighting and clawing and ate the scarce rations of meat.

They were nearing their teens and if anything showed for it, it was their size. Alakay was sprouting a head of unruly, long gold strands of hair. His chest and shoulders broadened and his waist slimmed, forming into the masculine physique of a grown male lion. And by most feline standards, he was quite handsome.

Tigress was a beauty. Long, slender torso and radiant, sharp eyes that glowed brighter than the sun. She had become a strong, powerful female tiger that would make most proud.

And as their bodies changed, so did their visiting hours. They were now too big to be held and petted by visiting spectators and too dangerous to get close to. They were instead put on display in squat cages with rusty iron bars. People pointed at the large cats, mimicked their roars from afar, and some threw rocks through the bars to see how they would react. And as tourists came and went, the zookeepers talked in hushed voices. They would always whisper along the lines of either "breeding" or "transfer". And the two did not learn of their fate until it was mistakenly said aloud.

It was a dark and stormy night. Thunder boomed, lightning flashed, and heavy raindrops pounded the roof, rattling the walls. Tigress and Alakay were snoring peacefully when the soft squeak of shoes aroused them from their slumber. They listened intently as they came closer. The occasional squish of wet rubber against the concrete floor was accompanied by voices. Human voices.

A sudden beam of yellow light peered through the bars, blinding the two momentarily. One of the people in a uniform held a flashlight at the two, studying how the light reflected off their eyes. The other, much shorter and fatter than his companion, spoke first, hooking his chubby thumbs into the belt loops of his pants.

"Are these the two Jace was talking about?" He asked the taller one.

"Yep. The boss decided to get these two working. We're running low on them liger critters." He said in a slurred accent, his crooked teeth spitting saliva as he spoke.

"When's he gonna make 'em do it?"

"Three days from now, I think." The beanstalk of a man lowered his flashlight, clicking it off and snapping it onto his belt. They left as they started another conversation about what they were planning on doing later.

Alakay wasn't able to piece together what their unexpected visitors had said. The only thing he managed to register was that it was important. He turned to Tigress who wore a grave expression, her pupils dilated and muscles taunt like the string of a bow. She looked scared, and that scared him as well.

"Tigress. What did they mean?" He asked. She did not answer right away, only stood and faced the wall. Her paws were clenched into fists, and Alakay knew that it was bad. The striped feline gave a shaky breath, the muscles in her back expanding.

"They...want us to make children." She said in a near whimper. Both fell silent, their minds reeling at this cruel reality. Alakay didn't know what to say or do. How could he possibly come up with something at a time like this? So he shut his mouth and stared into the inky darkness of the cage. Neither slept for the rest of the night.

What came next was something they would never forget. On the day of their appointment with the roadside's zoo boss about their breeding, a man in a stiff black suit came in, holding a clipboard and walking around the zoo, scribbling notes as he inspected the animals in their cages. Men and women tried to talk him out of going any further with lame, cheap excuses, but the man simply waved them away dismissively as he continued to observe their residents.

When he stopped at Alakay and Tigress' cage, he folded his hands in front of him and eyed their every movement. The two watched the stranger cautiously, who had stirred a sense of bewilderment in the place.

"Why, if I may ask, are two different species of felines in the same cage?" He asked a woman who stood nearby biting finger nails, a nervous habit of hers.

"They... um... they were r-raised together. We didn't want them t-to separate. They rely on each other." She managed to say through her chattering teeth, forehead shining with sweat.

"Or did you keep these two together for your own purposes?" The man said, a bitter bite playing dangerously on his tongue. She hesitated before telling him no, but the lion and tiger didn't have to be the victims of this establishment for years to figure out that she was lying.

The man turned to her, his back straight as a rod, and he spoke loudly as if trying not to yell.

"Ma'am, you do know that running a zoo such as this one requires the supplies and expertise in zoology to tend to the needs of these animals? And more importantly, that such behaviors and/or intentions of breeding lions and tigers is not only looked down upon, but also considered animal cruelty?" He recited.

The woman opened and closed her mouth in a desperate quest to come up with something to say, anything to say. But only a strangled squeak emitted from her throat and that was all the man needed for him to continue.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry but I cannot allow you to go on with you and your coworkers line of work. I'm shutting you down." He said and walked away with the woman hot on his trail.

Alakay and Tigress shared a look that both expressed their concern and confusion.

Shutting them down? As in he was shutting down the roadside zoo?

You'd expect them to be completely overjoyed at this, to celebrate their freedom from a lifetime of slavery and cruelty and be free of the treacherous practices performed in this place, to escape their fate of making children at the humans' will.

But no. They did not. They couldn't. There was so much left unsaid that they couldn't bring themselves to even smile. If this revelation proved to be true, what would become of the large cats? Obviously, they would be taken out of the roadside zoo and seen that they took a visit to a proper doctor to be diagnosed for the damage inflicted on them.

But then what? Would they be put back into the wilderness or into a more secure, legal animal facility? Or better yet, were they going to stay together or be separated due to their different species? This worried them more than anything as they awaited for what was to come.

But it was now safe to say that with either result that came from their rescuers' decision, he had truly saved them. He was their salvation.


	3. Happy Birthday!

It didn't take much to wake up Tigress. With or without his boisterous cheering and whooping, she reluctantly woke up. She watched through heavy-lidded eyes at the lion running to and fro through the animal exhibits like the ball of energy he was. The female tiger smiled to herself at his childish behavior. Alex was always like this, even if it wasn't for the occasion. She didn't have to witness such a display of pure excitement to know what day it was. In Alex's calendar, it was the best day of the week.

She stood to her hind paws and stretched out her back, accompanied with a long yawn. Walking out from beneath the shade of the thick canopy of trees into broad daylight, the feline raised a paw over her head to shield her gaze from the blinding light. A sudden shadow flashed before her, but she didn't flinch. It was already obvious who it was.

"Tigress!" Alex exclaimed. "It's Friday! Field Trip Day!" He gripped her paws and yanked her towards him, beginning to spin her around frantically. She really couldn't resist as he danced her around and around until she was nearly thrown across the entire zoo. She finally managed to free herself from the dancing frenzy of golden fur and took a step back to regain her balance.

"Calm down. It's not like this is anything new." She said in an attempt to sober her lion companion, but in the back of her head she was glad to see him so jovial.

"But how can I when the people are coming?" He hooted and hollered out. By He jumped into the air and made a beeline to Melman's, shouting how he loved the people over and over again. Tigress rolled her eyes as she headed for the tray that held her breakfast.

She knew what today held. It was the same thing as last week, and the week before that, and all the weeks leading up to her arrival all those years ago.

She remembered it like it was yesterday. The moment she had risen from her drugged sleep, the only question that plagued her thoughts was, "Where is Alakay?" She had thought that the people who had shut down the roadside zoo had separated the two large cats due to their diverse species. Before they were transported, the thought of losing her friend worried her sick for the days that followed. Slowly, all of the animals that had been the victims of cruel treatment were sent out to different rehabilitation centers for health checkups. She recalled how frightened she was as they took Alakay to a different room and never return.

And let's just say that she wasn't too eager to leave so quickly after witnessing her friend taken away from her. She put up quite a fight before they were successfully able to put her under, and she'll admit that she did not feel the slightest bit guilty for what were possibly were or almost fatal wounds that she inflicted on the new zoo helpers. At least not until she was reunited with the lion. The fact that the zoo authorities had not decided to separate the two was enough to fill her entire being with the purest joy imaginable. It didn't matter to her where they went as long as they were together.

After they left the veterinary physician, they were both dropped off at a far away establishment where over a dozen different kinds of animals roamed in their own enclosures. The Central Park Zoo. To the feline duo, it was as if they had arrived in heaven. Wide areas of space closed off with short brick walls, an endless sky for a ceiling, fresh air, actual (and quite delicious) food every meal. It was paradise.

It wasn't until after the first week did they acquaint themselves with their new neighbors. A pair of chimpanzees, a small group of penguins, a few different kinds of lizards and birds and the ever popular convoy of pigeons. But a trio of mammals closest to the large cats became their new entourage. A female hippopotamus, Gloria; a gangly, sickly giraffe, Melman; and a zebra with about as much character as an average New Yorker, Marty. Tigress didn't know exactly what to make of this new person if she even liked him. She didn't trust him, and not for the sake of suspicion, but for the way he simply expressed himself. To her, he was like a carefree, somewhat flamboyant teenager with a head full of fantasies. But Alakay seemed to get along with him, so she decided that he was alright.

Like a clique in your typical high school environment, they spent a majority of their time together until they were announced as an official group of friends. Gloria became what she herself called her "gal pal". The name was questionable, but she was grateful for the close relationship that grew between the two females. Melman was incredibly cautious, maybe a bit too cautious, but he was smart and cared for the ones around him, which Tigress respected. Then there was Marty. Even today she didn't know what to make of him. He was funny, outgoing, musical, and friendly to all. Especially to Alakay.

Or Alex now. Marty himself had donned the name to the lion because he thought it was easier to say than "Alakay". It angered her greatly that not only did the others believe it to be, and when Alakay accepted it wholeheartedly. Dropping his real, true name was like dropping her... and it hurt.

Perhaps that was what was so unsettling about the zebra. She had become so accustomed to having Alakay as her one and only friend that she wasn't all that willing to share his companionship. It was greedy of her to want Alakay all to herself, but could anyone blame her? Through her entire backstory of torment that took place in that roadside zoo, Alakay was by her side the whole time. He was always there for her, through all the pain and neglect they experienced together. He was the only one who understood her past and she understood his.

So to see him drift away from her side brought voices of doubt to her conscious. But as his friend, she had to bury those voices deep down to prevent herself from getting in the way of the newfound friendship. She refused to allow herself to put an end to such a thing, especially if it made Alakay happy. His happiness was everything to her, and to be the cause of it coming to a demise was too treacherous to fathom.

"Mornin', Tigress." Marty shouted over at her. She waved her greetings and resumed her position under the tent of trees. She observed the zoo come to life before her. The ringing gongs of the bell at the entrance of the zoo rang out beautifully, other animals were awoken and started their daily routines, and the zookeepers were doing their rounds.

She already knew that today was going to be a good day.

As day turned into night, Tigress reflected the day's events. At the moment, she was enjoying a late night dinner of raw, skinned steak all to herself as a few attendants brushed her fur out in smooth, repetitive strokes.

The day had held quite a few activities that drained the five animals into exhaustion. Gloria performed a display of graceful swimming techniques that would put most gold medalists in the Olympics to shame. Melman had numerous doctor appointments and continuously complained about a new spot on his shoulder as if announcing some great disease that had settled into his body. For Alex, it was the usual. He had stood on his "rock", as he called it, and danced around and roared to the crowd. Bowing and waving to his adoring fans like some celebrity walking down the red carpet. Marty decided it was time to change up his routine by doing whatever pleased his audience, or keeping it fresh. And Tigress spent her time playing a game she liked to call "Surprise Attack".

When a group of people would gather at her exhibit, she would hide from view and just when they started to doubt that she would come out, the tiger would pounce out and let out an earsplitting roar. They were obviously startled, but otherwise stood in awe of the magnificent beast.

Afterwards, the large animals all gathered at the center of the their ring of enclosures, the brick walls forming a star. They all gathered at the single lamppost to celebrate today's special occasion. It was Marty's tenth birthday. Everyone watched in excitement as the zebra began opening his presents, shaking them before unwrapping the boxes one by one. Melman had given him a thermometer which, to Marty's dismay due to already placing it in his mouth, was the giraffe's very first. Alex presented a snow globe, Gloria made a cake, and Tigress herself had given him an old radio for his collection of burnt cds to finally play. He was truly grateful.

As Marty turned his back for a moment, the others got into position and hummed loudly to grab the zebra's attention. He looked back as they started to sing a spritely tune.

"Happy Birthday to you. You live in a zoo. You look like a monkey-" They all switched off at every word, taking turns in chanting the birthday song. Tigress took no part in it. Not because she had anything against the goofy lyrics the others chorused, but simply because she had no interest in singing in itself. She witnessed in mild amusement as their little carol came to an end.

"Aaaaaaand!" Melman drawled our.

"you smell like one, too." They finished in a flourish of grins and chuckles. It wasn't until they were finished that they realized a certain someone hadn't sung along.

"Aww.. well, now.. you guys are just

embarrassing me.. and yourselves!" Marty remarked.

"What are you talking about? We worked on that all week." Alex said back. "Or at least most of us did." He said pointedly, giving me a reprimanding look to the female tiger.

"Sorry, guys. But I don't sing." Said Tigress as she curled herself on top of her brick wall.

"Let's go, let's make a wish babycakes." Gloria cheered, presenting a small chocolate cake practically dripping with frosting and gummy candies. Tigress smiled to herself as Marty furiously blew out the bright, neon candle and plunged his mouth into the cake. He came away, snout coated in a thick layer of smeared, snowy white frosting.

"Come on, what did you wish for?" Alex asked curiously, lounging on his own brick wall casually.

"No, can't tell you that." Marty said.

"Come on, tell!"

"No sirrey, I'm not telling you!" Marty repeated stubbornly like a child. "It's bad luck! You want some bad luck? I'll blab it out, but if you wanna be safe..." The zebra rambled, spraying bits of chocolate crumbs and sugary frosting from his lips.

"Ah, Marty would you just tell us?" Gloria finally said to end his ranting spree. "I mean really, what could happen?"

Anything really, Tigress thought to herself.

"Okay." Marty finally obliged. "I wished, that I could... go to the wild!" He exclaimed.

"The wild! Whoa!" Alex cried out in pure awestruck and fell backwards as if pushed by some greater force. Melman gasped sharply, resulting in his little party pipe to get sucked into his throat. And Gloria's jaw dropped, dark eyes widening dramatically. Tigress had a similar reaction to her hippopotamus friend.

The wild? Why would he ever want to go the wild? Tigress thought.

"I told you it was bad luck." Marty said, humor obviously chipping into his tone.

"I don't think luck has anything to do with the notion that you want to go to the wild, Marty." Tigress replied distantly. Her mind had drifted to the subject of Marty's proposition. The wild. Out there where there were no buildings, cars, exhaust, people. Just animals, vegetation and... freedom. The wild was freedom. Did Marty crave for the limitless amounts of freedom that were tied to the very foundations of the wild? The wild was meant to be for the adventurous and free... and the dangerous. And that's what concerned her the most.

Gloria and Melman remained silent, either due to shock or they were just at a complete loss for words. But with a turn of her head, Tigress realized that it was for a completely different reason. The female hippo had grabbed the giraffe by the head and was smacking the top of his neck in a desperate attempt to free the party pipe from Melman's throat. Tigress joined her immediately to help.

"The wild? Are you nuts? That is

the worst idea I've ever heard." Alex yelled out as he peered over the ledge.

Tigress ignored the lion as she wrapped her powerful arms around Melman's chest and gave a hard squeeze. The leftover air that had occupied his lungs pushed the plastic instrument straight out of his mouth. The tall giraffe coughed and spluttered as the party blower shot out a few feet away, clattering against the concrete flooring.

"It's unsanitary." Melman wheezed out.

"The penguins are going, so why can't I?" Marty said matter of factly, as if it was the simplest, most viable reason possible.

"The penguins are psychotic." Alex said back, reclaiming his spot on his bricked wall. He pulled out a spare steak as he joined the others. Probably had stowed it away for a midnight snack, Tigress concluded.

"Come on! Just imagine going back to nature. Back to your roots, clean air, wide open spaces!" Marty spoke out in a dreamy voice, spreading out his arms in emphasis at such a remarkable plan. Tigress had to admit, it would be nice to spend a little time outside of the zoo. She couldn't remember the last time she actually was in the wilderness. She had been so young when the poachers had sold her to the roadside zoo that she couldn't recall what it was like.

"Well I hear they have wide open spaces in Connecticut." Gloria stated, pulling the tiger out of her train of thought.

"I don't think that's what he meant by wide open spaces." Tigress commented.

"Connecticut?" Marty asked.

"Yeah, what you got to do is you gotta go over Grand Central. And then you gotta take the metro north train. North?" Melman said smartly.

"So one could take the train? Just hypothetically." Marty asked after a moment, deep in thought.

"Marty, come on! What would

Connecticut have to offer us?" Alex asked.

"Lyme disease." Said Melman with little no time to ponder about it.

"Thank you, Melman."

"Okay, wait. Let's just consider this. Marty might be into something." Tigress admitted out loud.

"Really?" Marty asked in disbelief, long, narrow ears erecting and smile spreading over his snout.

"Oh, not you too, Tigress." Alex said as if yet another inconvenience had just crossed his path.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tigress asked defensively, brows knitting together.

Reader, as you may know already, tigers can be known to become aggressive when need be. You may have observed this yourself, but with this particular large cat she was quite intimidating. Scary even. So you can imagine just how afraid Alex the Lion was when he saw his striped companion become livid.

"No no, nothing it-it's just..." Alex stammered out as he struggled to come up with a reliable, non-offensive way to cover up what he had just said.

"Just that the mere thought of it is completely insane." Tigress finished for him, bitterness loud and clear on her tongue.

"Okay. Yes, it is insane. I mean, the wild? Seriously?!" Alex asked ludicrously. The female tiger gave a disgusted scoff and turned away from the golden feline.

"No, no, really I just wanna..." Marty tried to explain only to be cut off by a flustered Alex.

"You certainly don't have this in the wild." Alex exclaimed, holding up his steak as if it were a trophy. "This is highly refined type of... food thing, that you do not find in the wild."

"You ever thought there might be more to life than steak, Alex?" Marty questioned. His tone was in all seriousness, something Tigress had never heard before come out of the zebra. But for Alex, whether he had noticed it or not, wrote it off almost immediately.

"He didn't mean that baby. No, no, no." He coped soothingly to his slab of meat. Caressing it to his face like it was his prized possession.

If Tigress wasn't so frustrated with him, she might've grinned at his playful antics. But she was, so she continued to stare daggers at the lion.

"Doesn't it bother you guys that you don't know anything about, life outside of this zoo."

That caught Tigress completely off guard. Life outside the zoo. Did that mean no people to point fingers at her? No one to limit what she did and where she went? No one to speculate her every minute of every single day? No more obeying the wills of random people for their enjoyment? Just her and the luxury of pure freedom. She could do whatever she wanted. It sounded like a dream come true.

"Na ahh... mm.." Gloria hummed.

"Nope." Said Melman.

"Well.. I mean.. Come on.. That's just one subject." Alex said.

"Alex, I'm not sure you're seeing the big picture." Tigress addressed. "Marty's talking about a life away from the city where we have the liberty to do as we wish."

"But don't we already?" Alex asked, perplexed at such a statement.

How could he not see that you are still prisoners? A voice in the large feline's mind echoed.

Because he is blinded by the fantasy that the zoo is all he needs and wants in life. That there couldn't possibly be more to life than this, Tigress answered mentally.

Tigress remained silent as Alex turned back to the black and white figure.

"You got a ah.. you got a little smutz right there on yer..." Indicating to a spot on his cheek to specify the large mound of frosting plastered to Marty's snout. With a defeated sigh, Marty halfheartedly wiped away the creamy glob off of his face and gave a weak smile.

"Thanks guys. Thanks for the party. It was great." He turned his back to the others, trudging to his treadmill with his head hanging low.

The others stared after him in varying degrees of confusion and pity.

"Well, that ended well." Tigress said after a moment of silence.


	4. We Make a Pretty Good Team

"What's eating him?" Melman asked blatantly, as if completely ignorant to what had caused the jovial atmosphere to suddenly turn south.

"Maybe you should talk to him, Alex." Gloria suggested. "You know, go on over there and give him a little pep talk."

"Hey, I gave him a snow globe. I can't top that." Alex said under his breath.

"Really went all out this year, huh?" Tigress asked bluntly, more like a statement than a question.

"See. Tigress gets it." Alex indicated, missing the striped feline's eye roll.

"Alex!" Gloria hissed harshly. The air was suddenly filled with tension so thick it could be sliced with a dull bitter knife. Apparently, Tigress wasn't the only one who noticed the change in attitude.

"I can see where this is going." Melman said as he slid off his bright party hat. "Is it getting late? I guess I'm gonna..." He stopped mid-sentence, snoring loudly as he fell into a deep slumber on the spot. As soon as the giraffe had passed out, Gloria and Alex began to bicker back and forth in a wordless conversation. Flailing their hands to and fro indicating their side of the argument with body language. It quickly ended when Gloria pounded her fist into her palm repeatedly in a threatening manner. Alex backed away immediately, almost fearfully.

"Come on, he's your best friend." Gloria whispered, much more kindly than her previous action. The lion frantically tried to find a way out of it by seeking his female cat's opinion. Tigress raised her paws up in surrender, proving to favor Gloria. As if she would so easily side with him.

Alex sighed in defeat. "All right, all right. Okay."

"Good." She said as she moved to leave. "Hey, Tigress. Keep an eye on him."

"You got it." She called back, casually leaning her shoulder against the pole and crossing her arms over her chest. Alex shared a flabbergasted expression at Gloria's final say, but the tiger simply shrugged with a smirk and the lion had no choice but to accept Tigress' company.

"G'night Marty!" Gloria called over to the silent zebra. He lazily lifted a hoof and replied. ".. night, Gloria."

Just as Gloria was about to enter her pool, she turned back to the two large cats and pointed at the duo, then to Marty, and then together as if explaining how to approach their downcast friend and come up with a solution. Then to bring her little performance to an extravagant end, she did a full back flip and splashed into her pool. Almost instinctively, Tigress scooted next to Alex as he presented his custom made umbrella, sheltering them both from the tidal wave that would have soaked them to the bone. After the rain of chlorine water ceased, Gloria's hand sprouted from the rippling pool and continued to point back and forth until it sunk under the waves. Alex took a moment to ponder to himself after he stowed away his Alex the Lion umbrella before he laid himself back onto the flat surface of his brick wall, his paws folded under his head and legs crossed. A relaxed position.

"What a day." He said after a sigh. "I mean it just really, just doesn't get any better than this, you know. Ooh! It just did!" He exclaimed. "Even the stars are out." Tigress looked up at this only to be met with the darkness of the night sky, smeared in the city's smog. But shining through was a single dot of light, a beacon against the murky void. "You're not gonna find a star like that in the wild."

"Helicopter." Marty And Tigress mumbled in unison. And sure enough, the pinprick of light instantly drifted away, the propelling of the whirling blades fading out as it continued to fly away. Alex sat up slightly when the chopper was out of view.

"Marty, buddy, listen. Everybody has days when they think the grass might be greener somewhere else. And that goes for you too, Tigress."

"Okay, fine. Maybe just deciding to go out into the wild isn't the most rational of decisions." Tigress commented.

She wasn't going to lie. As much as she wanted to experience the supposed paradise of freedom out in the middle of nowhere, there were a few kinks to his plan that just made the idea far-fetched. She had to admit that it was tempting, but it would take a lot more than a little daydream to convince her to go. No matter how fantastical or amazing it seemed.

"Alex, Tigress, look at me." The zebra said, stepping off of the excessive machine to face the two felines. "I'm ten years old, my life is half over. And I don't even know if I'm black with white stripes or white with black stripes." He turned again, slumping down until he sat on the chilled concrete of his pen, back pressed against the stacked bricks.

There was really no easy way to put it. Marty was right. He had spent a majority of his life locked up in this zoo, never having the chance to experience anything that was even reclusive to the wild. And to Tigress, it just wasn't fair. Shouldn't people—even animals—get the chance to have some kind of adventure? Certainly the entire lot of the zoo deserved a vacation from their...well, vacation. But if anyone deserved it, it was Marty.

Apparently, Alex had taken note of Marty's rather depressed aura for he too began to think to himself. And it didn't take long for him to find a cure for the zebra's case of the blues.

"Marty, I'm thinking of a song." He said in a sing-song voice.

Oh please, not the song, Tigress mentally groaned to herself.

"Alex please, not now." Marty huffed, but that wouldn't stop the melodic, rather stubborn lion from stopping any time soon.

"Yes, it's a wonderful song. I think you're familiar with it." Suddenly, loud noises escape his muzzle that vaguely sound like a beat and playfully uses his fingers against the top of the wall like a pair of dancing legs.

"Oh no!" Marty grumbles, hunching his back in irritation. Tigress couldn't blame him for his immediate distaste in Alex's song choice. With something so corny and—dare she say—overused, it was a wonder she had managed to not run away and be as far away from it as possible after all these years of listening to the lion recite it nearly everyday.

"I'm not listening." Marty said, nearly silenced by Alex's vocals gaining volume. As the golden cat approached Marty, the zebra cupped his hoods over his ears and childishly lapped his tongue to make incoherent noises to drown out his feline friend's singing.

"Start spreading the news…" Alex started, sliding onhis knees as if part of a musical number.

"I don't know you." Marty protested.

"I'm leaving today…" He zipped to Marty's other side, throwing up his signature jazz hands.

"He's funny. Who is that?" Marty continued, turning to Tigress for help. She simply snickered, but would find that she would regret staying behind as Gloria had earlier instructed.

Wanna know why?

Because the next thing she knew, Alex gripped her paws and began to spin her around like he had that morning, singing his tune louder by the second.

Tigress couldn't catch the next verse as the world twirled before her until she suddenly fell backwards in a dip, suspended in midair by Alex's grasp on her waist. Thank goodness she was so flushed and dizzy, that way no one saw the unmistakable pink tint growing on cheeks for reasons preferred unsaid.

"Come on, you both know the words." Alex cooed to both her and Marty. "Two little words."

"New York." Marty whispered.

"You too, Tigress." Said the male lion as he yanked her back onto her feet, showcasing his winning smile with puppy dog eyes. How could she refuse?

"New York."

Alex gathered the three of them together into what could be called a group hug as they now sang out loud.

"New York!" Their voices echoed throughout the entire zoo, and it showed by the tempered residents who were trying to sleep.

"Shut up! Shut up!"

"Hey! I'm sleeping here!"

"We're not all nocturnal you know!"

"I'll knock yer "turnal" right off, pal!" Marty threatened to whoever called out.

"Yeah, you and what army, stripes?" Another said.

"You mess with him, you mess with me and Tigress, Howard!" Alex replies just as triumphantly. And at the mention of the female tiger, the neighbors quieted almost immediately for fear that the large cat would lash out on them. Not that she ever did, but she was quite intimidating to say that the thought was never far from their thoughts. But just for good measure, she let out a hearty growl as a warning.

"See? Mr. Grumpy Stripes." Alex cheered, lightly punching Marty's arm. "We make a great team the three of us."

"We sure do. No doubt about it!" Marty agreed.

"What are you gonna do? Just go running off to the wild by yourself?"

"No."

"Wait. Really?" Tigress asked, a hint of disappointment almost evident in her voice.

"Yeah."

"Good." Alex commented, relieved to see that he was finally able to change his friend's mind.

"You, Tigress, and me! Let's go." Marty exclaimed.

"What?" Tigress and Alex cried, both completely shocked.

"The wild! Come on, you guys and me together!" The zebra said jovially. "It's a straight shot down Fifth avenue to Grand Central. We'll grab a train, we'll head north! We'll be back by morning, no one will ever know!" He rambled on and on.

"You're joking, right?" Alex said, a light chuckle passing his lips. The distraught on Marty's face was enough to send Tigress' heart plummeting down to the deepest depths of her stomach like a lost soul tripping into the endless abyss of Tartarus of the Underworld

A/N: Favorite if you're a Percy Jackson Fan!

But he wiped it away rather quickly because by the time he faced the lion once again, a smirk had made its way across his snout.

"Yeah! I'm joking, of course I'm joking! Give me a break!" He said, a mirthless chuckle surpassing his black lips. "Like we're gonna get a train."

Alex let out a large breath of air, relieved. The same could not be said of Tigress.

"Don't do that, you really had me worried there." Said Alex.

"Well, I guess I'll hit the sack." Marty said after a yawn.

"Yeah, me too. I'll need the rest of my voice for tomorrow. It's seniors day, you know. I have to roar extra loud. Give them a little jolt! You know what I'm talking about?"

Tigress didn't answer. In fact, she had remained silent ever since Marty said that he had been kidding all along about going out into the wilderness. She of all people was not easy to be lied to, so it took little to no time in realizing that Marty had bluffed. Alex on the other hand was completely oblivious.

"Good night, Alley Al." Marty shouted as he settled into his straw bed. Alex climbed over the wall and shimmied his way under a shelf of concrete where he was concealed in darkness and the warmth of his very own personal heater. Tigress stayed behind though, waiting for an opportunity to console the zebra.

Aside from the constant rustle of trees swaying in the gentle breeze, a distant caw rang out across the zoo, imitating a sort of bird that Tigress couldn't place.

"Arghhh... They forgot to turn off the ambience again!" Alex cried out, clearly annoyed.

"Don't worry, that's cool." Marty said, getting up once again and making his way to a single pole. "You know, I got it." He reared up his hind legs and bashed his hooves against the base of the pole. It shook violently, the soft squawking of the automated bird warbling into silence. The only sounds that remained were the squealing of racing cars and the ever boisterous, rude screams of taxi drivers and bystanders all across the city.

"Marty." Tigress said. The said zebra turned to the tiger, almost expectantly. "I know that you said that you were just joking about going to the wild, but you should know that not a lot goes past me." Marty tried to intervene, but she continued. "And don't say that it was all just fun and games. You want to leave the zoo and if anything it's fine. And I can honestly say that I of all people know how you feel."

The zebra didn't look at all surprised at the female cat's statement, and if anything showed for it was the fact that he didn't protest against her. But there was a daring, determined look in those forest green eyes that caught Tigress' attention and her thoughts had become reality before she could question them.

"Then you know that I'm still going, no matter what anyone else says."

Tigress sighed deeply. "Yes. I do." She knew that if it was her, she would do whatever it took to be free from the city—or civilization in all—with all the willpower stowed in her being. But it was easier said than done for as one can see, she had something tying her down from executing such a drastic plan of action.

"But can't you at least think it over before you go running off into some distant land alone?" Tigress said, still pursuing an idea or belief that if in time the others could warm up to the supposedly fantastical quest of running away to the unknown, maybe they could all do it together instead of one of them taking off without them.After a moment to contemplate, Marty gave a slight nod of his head and that was enough of an approval for her.

"Thank you." She breathed as she headed for her enclosure. And just when she was about to jump over, she felt Marty's gaze locked on the back of her head with such intensity that the hairs on her spine stood on end. Before she could look back to see what he was up to, he asked something so baffling, so mind boggling that it almost sent her falling backwards in shock—that is if she wasn't so sturdy.

"Would you ever go?" He started. "Would you ever go off on your own to see the world, even if it meant leaving your friends for a bit?"

Tigress took a full minute to herself before she spoke, and even then her voice quivered uncertainly.

"As much as I want to leave, I know that I never could. Not without him." She slightly indicated to the other side of the zebra's den where soft mumbling and snores emitted from a certain lion. "I've spent my entire life wishing that I could just drop everything and start a life somewhere else where I could be alone and free from the prying eyes of humanity, but knowing that Alex...and the others (A.N. She added as an afterthought, mind you.) I don't think I could ever depart from them. They're like family."

A mirthful chuckle greeted her when she finished and she couldn't help turning to Marty with confusion riddling her expression.

"Don't you dare pull the family card on me." Said Marty in a merry tone. "I've known that there's some chemistry brewing between you and Alex since the day you got here." Tigress felt heat rise from her cheeks to the tips of her ears as he continued. "And I get it. You guys are attached at the hip. Can't leave him behind to go out into the wild, huh?" He finished, if not somewhat guiltily. Tigress did her best to ignore it.

"No. I can't." She said in a near whisper.

A moment of silence wedged between the two before either of them said another word.

"Well, goodnight." Tigress said.

"Night." She heard Marty say as he laid back down to rest.

Tigress couldn't put her finger on it, but something wasn't right. Perhaps it was the way that Marty suggested the idea of her going to the wild alone that had shaken her up. As if he were considering the idea himself. As much as Tigress denied it, she knew that it was a viable possibility. Not for the sake of sparing her feelings for hard cold logic, but for the ones she was closest to. Gloria, Melman, and Alex. They'd be devastated if Marty were to just vanish.

Only one thing was for certain, nothing would ever be the same again.


	5. Panicking Won’t Get You Anywhere

Muttering. That was the first thing she heard in the midst of her slumber. Incoherent, hushed muttering. As if someone were whispering nearby.

Tigress knew that it was the middle of the night, if not early in the morning. And being nocturnal and all left her with little to no sleep when the sun went down, so for someone or something to interrupt it would leave the cause of such a ruckus wishing they weren't on the receiving end of her fury. She groaned to herself before blinking away the fuzziness clouding her vision, eyes adjusting to the darkness.

"Come on now, baby." The muttering continued. Tigress already knew who it was and grinned at the thought of Alex laying by himself, sucking his thumb and mumbling absolute nonsense. This wasn't anything new. Even when Alex was a kit, he would talk in his sleep, reciting strings of unintelligible words put into phrases. At first, it would interrupt her sleep and bothered her to the point where she got unattainably frustrated with his nightly conversations. But as they grew older together, she not only got used to it, but embraced how comedic he could be in his sleep.

"My little filet. My little filet mignon with a little fat around the edges." Alex said. "I like that. I like a little fat on my steak. My sweet, juicy steak. You are a rare delicacy." The female tiger snickered and prepared to resume her sleeping when a rustling caused her to jerk up in alarm. It sounded as if someone were jogging through grass, trying to be quiet with an untrained stealth. Then there was talking, quiet and anxious. It didn't take her long to decipher the source of said talking. She crept her way out of the underbrush and towards Alex's enclosure. On arrival, she saw that low and behold there stood Melman, his long neck bent down into the depths of the lion's den.

"Alex. Alex. Alex!" Said Meman, skittishly trying to wake up the snoring lion. Without announcing her presence, she effortlessly leaped over the brick wall and into Alex's enclosure. Melman squeaked at her sudden appearance, but she ignored him as she made her way to Alex. She had an idea in mind, a mischievous, roguish idea that brought back the old times. She stalked her way towards him on all fours, silently padding to his side. She lowered her muzzle next to his ear and gave a throaty growl that shook the very cement beneath her paws. Alex screamed awake and popped up, slamming his head against the low ceiling hard. He frantically looked around, one paw clutching his head and the other over his heart as if it too would burst out of his chest. He caught sight of Tigress who was grinned wickedly and he understood what had just happened.

"What did you do that for?!" He cried out.

"What?" She remarks.

"Why'd you do that?!"

"Do what?"

"Y-y-you know! What you did, just now!"

"I don't know what you're talking about." She said innocently, shrugging her shoulders casually. Alex, flustered and confused, stammered for a response. Mouth opening and closing like a gasping fish with in a desperate attempt to say something, but all that came out were failed whimpers, either from Tigress' denial or the growing lump on his scalp. He finally sighed in defeat and it was then that the larger cats realized that they had an audience. Melman smiled at the two, watching their fun and games take place. Alex was the first to talk to him.

"What's up, Melman?" He asked. Melman furrowed his g

Brows over his large, round eyes, seeming to have forgotten what he was referring to, but it quickly alleviated for the idea came back to him. "Oh okay. So you know how I have that bladder infection and I have to get up every two hours? I got up to pee and looked over at Marty's pen, which I usually don't do. I don't know why, but I did. And-" The giraffe rambled, never taking a breath.

"Slow down." Said Tigress, concerned that their anxious friend would over exert himself. "We need you to focus for us if it's that important to you."

"What? What's going on?" Alex said, a little more impatient than the striped-feline.

"It's Marty. He's gone."

"Gone!" Alex and Tigress chimed, Alex banging his head against the ceiling yet again. "What do you mean, 'gone'?" Alex asked, but Tigress wasn't listening to him. She instantly hopped out of Alex's pen and raced to Marty's. Inside was the small flat of fresh cut grass, the treadmill Marty used regularly, the trough of clean water, and the bed of hay Marty slept on every night. But there was absolutely no sign of Marty. No sign of him whatsoever. The zebra had completely and utterly disappeared. The sound of footsteps behind her grew louder and stopped abruptly, but she once more didn't pay any mind to the oncomers. She was in the middle of a mystery and a tragedy.

Where could he have gone, she thought to herself. Where was he now?

Out of her peripheral vision, she saw Melman dart to Gloria's to break the news to her. She could already hear his panicked stuttering. Then there was Alex. Try as she might, she could not bring herself to speak, the shock of Marty's absence all too great to register right away. Alex was a different story. He had already single handedly taken up the task of searching for Marty with the confines of the zoo. He started by bending down into the hay bed and digging up piles of yellow straw. Fistfuls went flying in a flurry of brown over Alex's head, fluttering in the air like feathers and settling back down as if undisturbed. Alex kept whispering questions under his breath in his state of panic.

"How long has he been working on this?" Melman said now that he had returned, motioning to a hole with the diameter of a bowling ball that punctured through the neatly trimmed grass. "Marty! Marty!" He yelled into the small cavern, all logic and sense thrown out the window in his hysteria.

"He wouldn't fit down there." Gloria remarked, dripping wet from her rushed exit from her personal pool. Out of the two males losing their marbles over Marty's disappearance, she was a cool, fresh splash of reality. She asked the reasonable questions.

"Marty? Marty! Marty!" Alex continued, a blur of gold and brown under the rain of his shoveling. Tigress immediately got her bearings when she realized that if she didn't stop him, he would most likely have an anxiety attack, if he hadn't already. She marched her way up to him and yanked him back from the piles of yellow grass. He stood on his feet, swiveling his head in circles as if his friend would emerge from some impossible hiding place, like the zebra had planned this and would surprise them like some teenager performing a Halloween prank. But this did not happen.

"This doesn't make any sense." Said Gloria. "Where would he go?"

Tigress thought to herself, backtracking to their conversation earlier. Marty's desperate attempt to leave the zoo behind and bring his friends along hadn't worked out in the least. And knowing Marty, one of the most persistent people Tigress had ever known, the zebra's dream would come true whether or not he had his friends by his side. And that was exactly what he had done.

"Connecticut!" Alex screeched out, matching Tigress' train of thought.

"He wouldn't." Said Gloria in disbelief.

"I think that we can now all agree that yes, he would. And he already has." Said Tigress. She didn't like to admit it, but if no one else would then she would have to be the pessimistic, logical one out the group, whether or not the others wanted her to be. Someone had to be sensible at this point and time.

"Oh, no! What are we going to do?" Melman shrieked, sprouting out of the hole. "I mean, we gotta-we gotta-we gotta call somebody!" Melman looked as if he was on the verge of a severe fit of terror. But at the moment, Tigress was a little more concerned about Alex who had rushed to a nearby telephone and started punching in numbers.

"Hello?" Alex yelled into the receiver. "Get me Missing Animals. And hurry. We've got a lost zebra on the way to Connecticut, and we need-"

Tigress had had enough of this nonsense. She stormed to where Alex stood with the phone in his paw and snatched it straight out of his hand and slammed it back onto its perch.

He gave her a stunned expression. "Why would you do that?! I was calling the people to-"

"The people can't understand you!" She barked, causing him to take a step back, alarmed at her intensity. "And if they find out that an animal of this zoo is running rampant through the streets, they will send him off to God knows where." She couldn't help hissing the last words out through her gritted canines. Alex, Melman, and even Gloria we're acting like chickens with their heads cut off; crazy, hectic, and complete despair. While they were panicking like some asteroid was screaming towards earth, they should've been devising a plan on how to get Marty back instead of thinking of what would happen if he didn't.

Tigress turned to the others who were gawking at the two with ajar jaws. "We have to go after him. If we don't, he may never come back." Whether she was referring to his fantastical journey to the wild or getting transferred by the zoo officials was unsaid because she knew that they got the idea.

"Tigress is right." Said Alex, finally seeing reason in this time of need. Guess he just needed a little sense knocked into him. "He's not thinking straight. We gotta stop him from making the biggest mistake of his life. He's probably out there lost and cold, confused." He sighed heavily, looking off into the distance as he imagined these cruel fantasies that could be inflicted on their absent companion.

Tigress, on the other hand, could not bring herself to think in such a way. If she knew Marty—and she did—she would know that instead of suffering in the unknown, he would relish in tolerating these circumstances, knowing that it was all part of the experience. Part of the adventure.

"Poor little guy."

Author's note: So sorry this chapter is short, but the next one will most likely come out pretty soon. Thanks for all of your guys support. It encourages me everyday to keep writing.


	6. Grand Central Station

Tigress was no acrobat. She never got trained or tested to see if she would be qualified for joining some side show or circus. And after a lifetime of torment in a roadside zoo that was secretly cross breeding animals illegally, the zookeepers thought it best to let the tiger live the rest of her life free from public entertainment aside from educational and safety purposes. Yet for as long as she could remember, she was athletic. It was more or less from natural resources rather than her staying in shape by herself, although she did make it a priority to workout when she could for the sake of good health. Yet it was all thanks to Mother Nature for her physique. She was also gifted with flexibility and impeccable strength. So it was no surprise to anyone when she effortlessly jumped over the high brick wall of the Central Park Zoo.

She did a full front flip in a high arch and landed on all fours on the other side of the wall. Her stomach clenched painfully, a thrilling sensation she was not quite familiar with, and it wasn't from the supposed leap of faith. It was excitement. She had never done this before. Never before had she snuck out of a facility that prevented animals—such as herself—to leave their pens, especially her own home. There was absolutely no need for it. She had everything she could ever need and want served to her on a silver platter, pampered and spoiled from the day she came in and for the rest of her life. She was sneaking out for the very first time. And although she could feel her excitement arousing, she refused to show it. This was not a joy ride or a fun trip she had heard multitudes of teenagers gossip about. This was a mission. A mission to retrieve Marty and return him back to the zoo before any of the officials found out where he had gone and punish him.

Alex and Melman followed after her. Alex wasn't quite as coordinated or serene as the female tiger was when getting over the wall. Instead of trying to get over himself, the lion had scaled the giraffe's towering neck as a ladder and was now having difficulty getting down. He finally let go after being suspended a full six feet above the ground, flailing and swingng like a disheveled spider on a string of webbing, and flopped onto his back with a thud.

"Graceful." Tigress scoffed, standing over him.

"Are you just going to stand there and gloat or are you going to help me up?" He pouted. She held out a paw and hefted him up to his feet, doing her best not to snicker at his remark.

Gloria wasn't as elegant with her exit, either. Unlike the two large cats, she didn't climb or leap over the brick barrier. Instead, she full on bulldozed through the wall, smashing a giant hole through the thick of brick and grout as if plowing past a fortress of plastic Legos.

Tigress feared that such a scene would give reason for the zookeepers to question what had happened, which would somehow relate to the animals actions, which would then cause them to wonder what had led them to do such a thing. She dared not to ponder on it for too long.

"Come on." The hippopotamus urged Melman. Said giraffe looked to be questioning what he was about to do, if not planning on backing out of the escapade. Tigress couldn't blame him. Melman, like Gloria and Marty, had spent his entire life in the zoo, not once ever seeing the world just outside of its borders. And now all of a sudden, they were abandoning it. Leaving behind all that they knew and into the city they called their home but never knew.

"One of us should wait in case he comes back." Melman squeaked, narrow head peeking from behind the rubble of crumbling bricks.

"Not now. This is an intervention." Gloria said, still undisturbed by the settling dust that armored her arms and shoulders. "We all got to go."

"What's the fastest way to Grand Central?" Alex asked over his shoulder as he inspected the city he had only known from behind zoo fences.

"You should take Lexington." Melman inclined.

"Melman!" Tigress and Gloria yelled in unison. All the pity in the world couldn't get to the best of Tigress, and apparently Gloria, too. Tigress knew when to take things seriously and to what extent. And when it came to emotions, specifically fear (be it her own or anyone else's), they needed to be put aside in such dire circumstances.

"OK. 'We.' We should take Lexington." Melman whimpered as he stepped over the pile of crushed bricks.

"Were the boxes really necessary?" Tigress asked him. She indicated to the tissue boxes covering his hooves that had been feverishly emptied given little time to prepare.

"They're for protection," He defended. Protecting him from what exactly Tigress didn't know, nor did she request the answer. She didn't have the patience to bring it up. So she dropped it.

And then they were off. Four concerned, devastated animals of diverse species galloping through Central Park on a quest to rescue their friend. Tigress only hoped that of all things, this wouldn't be the last time she would see her sanctuary. Who knew what could happen.

"We should've taken Park." Said Alex as he peered past the pillar. "Sure this is the fastest way to Grand Central Station?"

"I don't know! That's what Melman said." Gloria barked out, a little more frustrated than Tigress had thought. She was getting a little peeved herself. Time was of the essence and the subway was taking too long to arrive. They had traveled through their beloved city and decided that the quickest and most efficient form of transportation would be the subway. It wasn't like they could just go up to a taxi and ask them to take them to Grand Central. They were animals, and no human would ever in a million years welcome a pack of wild animals into their cab. Which was fine for two reasons. One, they wouldn't all fit inside such a cramped space; and two, traffic was particularly bad at night. It would've taken hours just to get across town.

Tigress had taken upon herself to stay undercover. Taking the less traveled routes, staying in the shadows, preventing as few people as possible from seeing them. It was bad enough that they had busted out of the zoo with evidence being the damaged brick wall, and showing themselves off for the world to see was the last thing they needed. The entire city would erupt in hysteria and having the authorities at their tails wasn't how Tigress had planned to end the night. So she kept her friends from prying eyes as best as she could.

"Hey. Hey, you guys." Melman called out as he emerged from the nearby men's bathrooms, boxed-hooves clomping softly against the cement floor. "That room has some nifty little sinks you can wash up in, and look!" He stuck out his long tongue and presented a half eaten round, blue object. "Free mints!" Oh God, she thought to herself as she cringed at the realization of what it actually was. "Melman, that's not a mint." She said, disgusted as she crossed her arms over her chest to assuage the sickening flops in her gut. Melman knitted his thin eyebrows over his bulging eyes, clearly confused. Thankfully, Alex had the nerve to do something about it before she could. She wasn't sure she could fully explain what he had just put into his mouth.

"This isn't a field trip." Alex snapped, yanking at the giraffe's tongue and snatching the circular bar from his mouth. He tossed it aside and it skidded across the grey cement before coming to a halt. Tigress had the feeling that no man would be wanting to use that anymore. "This is an urgent mission to save Marty from throwing his life away. Now, where's the train?" A whistle sounded off, signaling the arrival of their chauffeur.

"Here it comes." Melman piped in.

They all peeked their heads out in the direction of which their train would be arriving. But there was nothing there. There was no train before them. Tigress was befuddled for the smallest of seconds before realizing what this actually meant. She only had a millisecond to whirl around and witness the speeding train race right for their outstretched necks and for her to yank back the others before they could be decapitated. They all screamed with the oncoming train as they fell back.

"Thanks, Tigress." Melman stuttered, shaking slightly as the idea of nearly losing his head sank in.

"Anytime."

"What did Marty say to you?" Gloria scorned at Alex, much less shaken up than the lion or giraffe. "I asked you to talk to him"

"I did! I did! I don't understand.' He said, "Let's go." I said, 'Are you crazy?' He says, 'I'm ten years old.' And he has black-and-white stripes, and so then we sang and…"

"Tigress, did this actually happen?" Gloria interrupted.

The train squealed to a halt and a pair of doors slid open with a hiss. They started to board.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"You're not helping, Tigress." Alex yelped, becoming flustered.

"I'm not trying to help." She smirked despite the circumstances. It earned her a deadpan expression. They stepped onto the train and as they did so, dozens of people went to step off. Once they saw that there was a lion, a tiger, a hippo, and a giraffe just a stone's throw away, all hell broke loose. They ran in all directions, screaming and panicking. Tigress couldn't do anything about it. She could only hope that they got back to the zoo with Marty before anything bad could happen.

Tigress and the others started taking their seats. The doors closed and they were just about to take off when Melman, the last one to get on, started to go into a frenzy. It appeared that his hind leg was stuck in the middle of the doors. Tigress sighed, desperately trying to not get annoyed by the giraffe's clumsiness, and went over and pulled on his foot until it popped inside, hoof no longer covered by one of his beloved tissue boxes. She saw the quickest of glimpses of said box tumble to the platform, now lost and forgotten.

Oops.

She took a seat in between Alex and Melman as they raced through the underground railroad. Aside from the light jerking of the train,the grimy seats, rusting support poles along with the scent of the subway that was too musty for her liking, the train was relatively clean and safe. The rushing wind pounded and wailed as they sped through the tunnels, rattling the windows behind her head. She didn't mind.

"Aw!" Alex groaned dejectedly beside her. She looked over at the lion to see what the fuss was. A trembling man who must've missed his turn to get off when he could and was now trapped in a car full of wild animals. He quivered fearfully behind a large newspaper displaying the headline for the sport's section. "Knicks lost again."

"What a tragedy." Tigress huffed, leaning back into the scraped plastic of the bench, arms once again crossed over the cream-colored fur of her chest.

"Could you be any more impassive?" Alex asked, a hint of anger behind his tone as he shot her a scowl.

"Is that a rhetorical question or are you wondering just how much I do not care for a lost basketball game?" She remarked, the smallest of grins snaking up her muzzle.

"What are you going to do." Melman voiced in monotone, his head resting upside down on the complete other side of Gloria. Due to his long neck and being in such a small space (in terms of being in a larger-sized species), he barely fit as it was, even with his neck bent. Before Alex could take another whack at defending his reasoning for being upset for such an oh-so important occasion such as a sports event, a noise that could be easily mistaken for a strangling cat talking through a radio crackled over the intercom.

"Did that say "Grand Central Station" or 'my aunt's constipation'?" Alex asked aloud.

"Let's just hope it's not the latter." Said Tigress.

"This is it." Gloria said.

As soon as the doors opened up, they ran to the stairs that led to their designated location where Marty was most likely to be. Just as Tigress' paws landed on the first step, a deafening clatter rang out behind her. She was almost too afraid to look, but she did, and as predicted, wished she hadn't. There was Melman, floundering around as he trampled through the remains of what had to be a drum kit that belonged to a man in dark sunglasses. What had happened was obvious and Tigress had to restrain herself from groaning.

Melman was clearly not meant for the city.

She trudged her way to where he laid in a crumpled heap of limbs and drums. She lifted him back onto his feet and pulled him along to the stairs, which then turned into an escalator.

Finally they were getting somewhere. She prayed to whatever greater power up above in the heavens to give her favor and to make the rest of the night much less chaotic.

Her prayers must've been left unanswered because said chaos was unfolding not only a dozen feet in front of her. Alex. Alex the Lion, praised and adored King of New York, the crowning jewel of the Central Park Zoo, was swinging from a suspended light then jumping to the floor where crowds of citizens ran amuck to the nearest exits, screaming their heads off.

"Move aside. We have an emergency here. This is an emergency situation. Hey, hey. Just chill out. It's not that big of an emergency. Upstairs, downstairs." Alex outcried to the people.

How many times did she need to explain to him that humans could not understand him? She thought to herself dryly.

All of a sudden, an elderly woman who was peacefully walking by saw Alex frantically running about and with impossible speed and agility, swung her handbag right at his head. She struck him a few times before pulling out a bottle of what had to be pepper spray and shot a good dose of it into his eyes. He cried out in pain. "How do you like that?" The woman shrieked.

"Lady! What is wrong with you?" He yelled out. She hit him again, this time in the back of his skull. "Ow! Get a grip on yourselves, people." He ran away before she could continue to beat the living daylights out of him.

"You bad kitty." She squawked after him.

Finally reaching the top, she surveyed the area in search of their friend. It only took a few seconds to spot his black-white striped figure. She ran to him just as Alex tackled him to the ground.

"I got him! I've got him!"

"He's got him!" Gloria hollered. "He's got him!"

"He's got him! He's got…" Tigress heard Melman from behind her. She could've sworn she heard a distant crash nearby, as if something had been hit. She didn't care to look. They had Marty, and now they needed to leave before they caused anymore mayhem tonight.

"Whoa! What are you guys doing here?" Marty asked, flabbergasted.

Alex embraced him in a tight hug. "I am so glad we found you."

"We were so worried about you." Gloria said over him.

"Don't worry, I'm fine, I'm fine. Look at me. I'm fine." Marty said indicating to his unharmed self, as if he hadn't just snuck out of a zoo and ran off to go into the great unknown without any supervision or consultation whatsoever.

"You're fine? Oh, he's fine." Alex said rather calmly. Tigress blinked in surprise. She was expecting him to overreact in his own dramatic, flamboyant way that was really unnecessary. The fact that he was actually being at peace about it after the whole freak out session at finding Marty's absence and frantic getaway to Grand Central station, worried her. He was like a volcano; the longer it took to actually explode, the bigger the eruption was in the end. "Oh, great. You hear that? Marty's fine. That's good to know. Because I was wondering…" and without warning he snatched Marty by the neck in the blink of an eye. And that my friends, was the explosion Tigress feared would occur. "How could you do this to us? I thought we were your friends!"

"What's the big deal?" Marty gurgled. The iron grip on his neck must've made it a challenge to breathe, let alone talk. "I was coming back."

"Don't ever do this again. You hear me?" Alex said, tightening his grip, as if he wasn't already strangling the zebra.

"Do you hear him?" Gloria wagged a finger like a mother disciplining her child who had disobeyed her.

"We're running out of time." Melman suddenly interjected. Tigress had to inwardly swallow the groan threatening to bellow from her throat at the sight of him. It wasn't really his presence that nearly made her facepalm. It was the broken Grand Central Station clock encasing his head that made her want the world to split open and swallow her whole. How it came to be there and how she had not taken such notice of it was unbeknownst to her. All she did know was that Melman was most definitely not well coordinated, especially in the bustling city.

"Oh, Melman, you broke their clock?" Gloria said, speaking Tigress' thoughts aloud.

"...do this again! Don't you ever, ever do this again!" Alex continued to rant.

Tigress was now thinking it was probably better if they hadn't come along in this chase. Not that it was a task unworthy enough to take on, but the consequences and events taking place before her were certainly not the best. She should've gone alone. She was the fastest, quietest, and most discreet of the group. She would've been back at the zoo with Marty in tow in no less than an hour if she had convinced her friends to stay behind.

But right now she had other things to deal with. Such as the entirety of the police force storming into the station on a rampage. She knew exactly what they were there for and could only pray they could get out of it. It was up to her to do the job.

"Alex! We have to go. Now!" She commanded, yanking him to his feet. "Come on." She went over to Gloria where she was doing her best to pull the prized clock off of the giraffe's head. "We have to go." She urged.

But it was too late. Within seconds they were surrounded by blue clad men and women with bullet-proof shields held in front of them. Streams of search lights suddenly shined down on them and they froze on the spot, inspecting the large entourage of authoritative figures cornering them. There had to be well over a hundred of them and all were armed to the teeth. They were trapped.

"Cute and cuddly, boys. Cute and cuddly." A voice chimed below her.

Tigress chanced a glance to the source of the voice. It was revealed to be the penguins from the zoo, waddling and grinning as if they were nothing put purely innocent bystanders caught in the midst of this mess. But she knew full well that if it weren't for them, they wouldn't be here in the first place. She shot Skipper, the leader of the band of black and white birds, a glare that would've sent him running.

"It's the Man." Marty whispered, looking stunned. But instead of cowering, he regained his charm and spoke up. "Good evening, officers." He said aloud gleefully. Probably to appeal to their better nature.

"No. No. No." Alex hissed towards him harshly. "You don't talk now. OK? You're not good with the 'putting words together and their coming out good' thing. You keep it 'shh'." The lion stepped forward and clasped his paws together in a welcoming manner. "Hey! How ya doing? You know what? Everything's cool. We just had a little situation here. Little internal situation. My friend," he motioned to the zebra still splayed on the ground, "went a little crazy. Happens to everybody. The city gets to us all. Went a little cuckoo in the head."

"Don't be calling me cuckoo in the head." Marty remarked, seemingly only slightly offended for being marked as mentally unstable.

"Just shush!" Alex whirled around and angrily pressed a finger to his snout at his striped friend.

"Alex." Tigress intervened. "This is not the time or place to try and negotiate our way out of this." Said the female tiger as she placed a firm paw on his arm, forcefully ushering him away from the officers.

"I can handle this." He said back, pulling on his arm. She didn't let go.

"No. You can't." She nearly roared out. "We need to get out of here now if you want to get back to your precious zoo." She had had enough of this nonsense. She was completely fed up with all of these sorry excuses and shenanigans in their journey across New York City. She was taking them home right now even if it killed her.

"I got this, Tigress!" He said back just as heated, freeing his arm with a strong yank. "I'm not a kit anymore."

"Then why don't you stop acting like one." The words escaped her muzzle before she knew that they had. For a second, his gaze faltered. A pained expression etched into his golden facial features as if her statement had actually inflicted him with pain. But as soon as it came, it was gone. Replaced by a determined frown. He spun around to once again confront the humans only to find the leg of the elderly woman from before meet a very special place known only to the male gender. He doubled over at her strike and she was instantly carried off by two speeding policemen.

"Would you give a guy a break?" Alex squeaked out, clutching where the sun didn't shine. If Tigress wasn't so peeved at the large cat who whimpered in pain, she would've chuckled. But otherwise she remained standing tall and strong like a mighty redwood tree. After a few moments to recover from the blow, Alex composed himself.

"We'll take my little friend home and forget this ever happened. All right? No harm, no foul, right?" He waved his arms in emphasis. When he went forward a little, the crowd scuttled backwards in fear of the large lion. "Hey, it's cool. It's me, Alex the lion. From the zoo." He smiled politely and posed for them as if that could show just who they were dealing with. Tigress rolled her eyes at him as he chivalrously went into his signature performing position. It wasn't as if there weren't any other lions in Manhattan that could be mistaken for him. And they still couldn't understand a lick of what he was saying. Again, they were humans.

"What's the matter with them?" He turned around looking rather confused. Tigress was just about to explain to her oblivious friend why they weren't showering him with bouquets of flowers and cheers and kneeling down to kiss his feet he was used to when something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. A singular man in a green uniform stood out from the others, shaking like a leaf on a tree in front of his brothers in arms. He clumsily held a rifle in his hands and was aiming it straight at Alex's back.

She instantly charged, shoving Alex aside when the trigger was pulled and something fast and sharp imbedded itself into the meat of her shoulder. She looked at it to access the damage only to find a dart. A tranquilizer dart. The fuzzy, pink end was like a dandelion tickling her chin, its sleek, metal body shining under the bright light. She suddenly felt dizzy, the earth swaying too and fro beneath her paws. And sick. She felt insanely sick. She fell to her knees, trying to blink away black and blue splotches materializing in her vision.

Those weren't there before. She thought to herself.

She could distinctly hear someone calling her name when she was suddenly lying on her side. The cool tile of the floor was the only thing she felt physically while the rest of her body tingled with numbness. Her brain felt like it was drowning in a sea of mud and sog. The more she tried to swim to the surface, the deeper and thicker the brown slosh became and soon she would be consumed in this swamp of drowsiness.

And then there they were. All of her friends crowding around her. All of them; Gloria, Marty, Melman and his broken clock, and Alex; appearing before her like angels descending from the heavens. They started looking distorted, as if she were looking at them through a warbled screen of glass.

"Tigress…" a voice echoed, sounding small and afraid.

"What… what's happening?" She mumbled through heavy lips. Her eyelids were much heavier as they dropped farther over her eyes. The last thing she saw were the hands of the Grand Central Station clock tick for the last time, clicking into place over its white face.


	7. We're Going to be Oki-zay

Darkness was a strange thing. It was an obvious difference between light and dark, a cloak of midnight, a sheer blanket of black. All of which was frightening in itself. But to wake up to absolutely nothing but this darkness is even more frightening.

Tigress should've been scared, or at least startled to find herself so suddenly thrown into this void of nothingness and possibly go into a state of shock. As if she were being swallowed whole by the jaws of anxiety and fear.

But reader, none of this happened, so do not fret. The female tiger did not indulge in this fear that would've plagued her mind senseless, she did not quiver when no one came to comfort her, and she most certainly did not scream at the horrid possibilities that could very well be lurking in the depths of this ocean of darkness.

For two very good, simple reasons, these things did not take place. And I hope that they reassure you. One: Tigress was fearless. She was a brave, hardened creature who had become accustomed to showing no signs of fear in such situations as this. She had been through enough in her life to understand that it all depended upon one's own perspective, that it only takes self-control to take hold of oneself and remain calm. And two: she was too tired to be scared.

Dear reader, I do believe you remember what happened in the last chapter with the tranquilizer dart, correct? I sure hope so or else I'm going to have to ask you to go back and reread it. And I wouldn't want you to wait any longer to keep reading, especially now that we're getting to the good part.

Oh! I'm sorry. I'm rambling. I apologize. Let's get back to the story.

Tigress was drugged with a rather strong sedative that could've knocked out an elephant. She was sure of it. She was very aware of this, along with other things that should've left her confused beyond belief. Such as the hard floor beneath her that could possibly be a plank of wood. And the presence of something thin and stringy was tickling her cheek and the smell of it mingled with the powerful perfume of saltwater and rusting metal. And a sound she had never quite heard before sang in her ears like ringing church bells. A sort of gentle crashing, muted by what had to be walls.

Through the thickness of sleep clouding her mind heavily, she was able to process that this wasn't normal. That she had a hard, wooden floor for a bed instead of a matted patch of Mexican meadow grass she was used to, courtesy of the zoo for her luxury. And the scents were alien to her, knocking into her nostrils like a blow to the face. And she had no memory of ever hearing such a sound like that.  
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. She could feel it in every bone of her limp body. This wasn't normal. This wasn't normal at all and when that happens, it usually means something bad. But she simply didn't have any motivation to either wonder why or how. She just wanted to go back to sleep and dream this nightmare away. Yes, she would go back to sleep and perhaps the next time she woke up, she would be back in her cozy pen with her soft mattress of meadow grass with the tall canopy of bamboo to protect her from possible rain. It was New York, the weather was always unpredictable.

"Oh, my head." A voice whispered. It was close and familiar, so familiar that Tigress nearly opened her eyes to see who it could be. But her grogginess won over, persuading her that whoever it was could wait. Maybe she would check later, maybe a few hours or so. Just as she was about to snuggle into the crook of her arm, she felt something bump into her. At first, it didn't bother her, that is until she realized where exactly they had bumped her. Below her, right into her side. Right into the wooden plank.

What was that? She thought to herself only vaguely curious about what lay beneath her. Whatever it was, their groans of pain echoed faintly.

"What the?" The voice came again. "Wait. Where? What?" She heard more bumps, the vibrations less hard but present. "I'm in a box!" The voice shrieked. "Oh, no. No, no! Not the box."

Poor thing was in a box, Tigress managed to think without dozing off. She of all people knew what it was like to be in such a state. The memories of being crammed into tight quarters for long periods of time in her youth flashed behind her eyelids, a shiver ran down her spine. She was just glad it wasn't Alex who was trapped in the confines of a wooden crate. Believe it or not, he had a serious post-traumatic disorder, even if the veterinarians never diagnosed it. She knew how he reacted in small, compressed places and it was not a pretty sight.

"Oh, no, they can't transfer me. Not me!" The voice became shrill and scared like that of a frightened kitten. And she was starting to decipher that it was, in fact, a male's voice. "Oh, I can't breathe. I can't breathe. Darkness creeping in."

Tigress felt a short but very much needed rush of adrenaline electrocute her entire being so that she was able to lift her head up, ears erect and eyes open to the dimness of her own box.

Her worst fears had come to life.

"I can't breathe. I can't breathe. Walls closing in around me. So alone. So alone."

"Alex?" She croaked, her voice surprisingly hoarse.

"Tigress?" He squeaked.

"Yes. It's me."

"Tigress! Oh no! I'm in- you're in- we're in... " His voice, as weak as it was, faded to a hush. She could hear the fear behind his words and it pained her to know that he was scared out of his wits. And as much as she wanted/needed to comfort him, she had no strength to find a way to do so.

"I know, Alex." A silent pause passed between them, but to her, it was insanely, impossibly loud.

She didn't know what else to say. She was as withered as a dying leaf in the fall—courtesy of the drugs—although Alex seemed more than energized, and she couldn't say anything to put him at ease. Nothing she could say would ever ensure that they would or ever will be okay. She couldn't promise that they would be safe in the oncoming future. She could never truly mean that things would ever go back to the way they were.

"Alex! Alex, are you there?" Another voice sounded off beneath her.

"Marty?" Alex cried.

"Yeah! Talk to me, buddy."

"Oh, Marty! You're here!"

"Where's Tigress?" Asked Marty.

"Here." She said in a gurgled tone, her drowsiness wearing off ever so slightly. She must've had a larger dose than her friends if she was still this tired.

"What's going on? You OK?" Marty inquired.

"This doesn't look good." Alex interrupted.

"Alex, Marty, Tigress, is that you?" A feminine voice rose.

"Gloria!" Tigress said.

"You're here too!" Said Alex.

"I am loving the sound of your voice," Marty remarked.

"What is going on?" The female hippopotamus returned. Her voice was even more muffled than the rest.

"We're all in crates," Alex yelled.

"Oh, no!" Said Gloria.

"Sleeping just knocks me out." And yet another voice arose.

"Melman!"

"Is that Melman?" Tigress asked. He sounded the farthest away from her.

"Are you OK?" Someone asked. Tigress didn't know who. She was too busy trying to sit up to know who had asked the question.

"Yeah. No, I'm fine." He said, yawning and stretching. Tigress couldn't see it, but she could hear the bones of his long legs pop. "I often doze off while I'm getting an MRI."

"You're not getting an MRI," Alex said.

"CAT scan?"

"No CAT scan. It's a transfer. It's a zoo transfer."

"Zoo transfer?!" Melman shrieked. "Oh, no. No, no, I can't be transferred. I have an appointment

with Dr. Goldberg at 5.00. There are prescriptions that have to be filled. No other zoo could afford my medical care." He rambled, becoming more and more hysterical within seconds.

'Calm down, Melman." She said in an attempt to settle down before he got out of control.

"And I am not going HMO."

"Take it easy, Melman. It's going to be okay." Marty assured. This seemed to somewhat work for it put an end to the giraffe's ranting. "We are going to be ok-izay." Tigress assumed it was some of the striped animal's made-up slang.

He couldn't be serious, Tigress thought. She blinked away the fuzziness fogging her vision to be met with wooden walls and clusters of straws at her feet. A few holes at the top of her crate streamed with grey light, the only thing that allowed the outside world to be seen. Or of what little could be seen. A quick glance revealed a gloomy sky and a fresh whiff of saltwater and rust.

"No, we're not going to be oki-zay." Alex imitated the zebra's choice of words. "Now, because of you, we're ruined!"

"Because of me? I fail to see how this is my fault." He said innocently.

Tigress couldn't believe it. She, for one, was all for the idea of taking some time to visit her natural habitat commonly known as the wilderness. But running away from her friends and her home wasn't what she had in mind. Nor was it to get shipped off to some unknown destination. And yet Marty, the whole cause of this, was acting as if he was nothing but a virtuous, guiltless being caught in the center of this expedition.

"You're kidding, right, Marty?" Gloria remarked.

"You of all people shouldn't be acting innocent here." Tigress directed at the zebra.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He mused.

"You! You ticked off the people." Alex roared beneath her. "You bit the hand, Marty. You bit the hand. 'I don't know who I am. I got to go find myself in the wild!' Oh, please." Alex said mockingly, poorly but effectively replicating his friend's previous conversation just the other night.

Wait! How long was she asleep? How long had she been out at sea (she concurred they were on some ship based on her observations)? How much time passed after their little party and they went after Marty to Grand Central Station?  
She didn't know.

"I did not ask you to come after me, did I?" Marty returned.

"No. But you did ask us to go with you. So how could you leave without us?" Tigress said, her tone rising with intensity. It helped wake her up a little more. At least now she wasn't nodding off every few seconds.

"He does have a point." Melman joined in. "I did say we should stay at the zoo, but you guy-"

"Melman just shut it." Said Alex. "You suggested this idea to him in the first place."

"Easy, Alex," Tigress spoke up. "At least he's not the reason why we're in crates."  
"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know full well what I mean." Tigress barked out.

"Yeah, but... you know what? Aren't you the one who practically encouraged this?" Alex spat out. "The one person who was on board with his crazy idea. So that means that it's also your fault!"

Tigress glared at the spot where Alex would've been if there wasn't a length of wood wedged between the two large cats. "Then, in that case, that makes two of us."

That about shut him up, even if it only lasted for a mere five minutes. Tigress had to admit, it felt good to let her anger out although she was sure it was at someone's expense, aka Alex's. It gave her mind something to think about, and therefore woke her up more and more. But her frustration and little dispute of shifting the blame amongst her friends wouldn't solve anything.

"Just... leave Melman out of this." Tigress sighed.

"Thank you." Said the giraffe. "Besides, it's not my fault we were transferred," Tigress smirked towards where his voice had come from, thankful she wasn't the only one to see her reasoning.

"Melman shut it," Gloria said. "Does anybody feel nauseous?"

"I feel nauseous," Melman said.

"Melman, you always feel nauseous," Alex noted.

Time passed and the others continued to talk amongst themselves for there was nothing else to do. Tigress would only come into the conversation when she felt the need to, but she mainly spent her time trying to keep calm. Flashbacks of her traumatizing childhood resurfaced from the deepest, darkest corners of her mind like wreckage after a tremendous storm at sea. She was brought back to the time when she was shut into a box not too different from the one around her, the rocky, sickening ride causing her to vomit after her capture, tears rolling down her cheeks, cries for help shredding her throat, and her heart torn into a billion pieces, never to be truly mended even as the years came and went. Said heart was thumping at the speed of light and it was becoming harder to not thrash around.

She needed to calm down. She needed to. It was either she found a way to keep herself from having a fit or she and the others would be in serious trouble. She hoped it was the former.

Perhaps that's why she had been so drugged. The zoo knew well enough of her past experiences and what happened when she was sheltered in small quarters. So on the one occasion of her removal, they had given the female a whopper of a sedative that knocked her out for three days straight. But it did the trick. Now she was trying to stop herself from busting the crate to splinters.

"I was the star in the greatest city on Earth." Alex bellowed. He seemed to be having a fit of his own. "A king. Loved by my people." More thumps resonated from beneath her, and it wasn't exactly helping her under the circumstances.

"Let's be civil." Melman squeaked.

"And you've ruined everything!" Alex screamed, a thunderous jolt vibrating through the wooden floor. Tigress was sure that at this rate she might never make it. She panted heavily, tongue hanging out of her mouth, her ears and tail twitching with unspent energy.

"'Loved'?" Marty said, flabbergasted. "If the people loved you, it's only because they didn't know the real you!" Another jolt sent Tigress sprawling on her paws and knees.

Great, now she had to deal with _two_ animals riled up meanwhile juggling her evergrowing anxiety.

"Don't make me come up there. I'll whoop both of y'all." Gloria ordered.

"I thought I knew the real you!" Marty shouted.

"Your black-and-white stripes, they cancel each other out. You're nothing!" Alex cried.

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" Melman repeated in a never-ending chant.

"You're not helping the situation." Squalled Gloria.

So much screaming, so much movement, so much noise... Tigress was on the verge of an existential crisis. She was going to explode at any given moment. She could feel it. At this point, the crates were rocking back and forth as if two kids were playing on a broken teeter-totter. Alex and Marty were bickering with growing vigor and was showing to get violent. Tigress exploded.

In a flash, Tigress sprang from the innards of the crate in an eruption of splintered wood and into the open air of the open ocean with a roar that rang out with the mightiness of a hundred soldiers on a battlefield. She only had a split second to get her bearings when a crate slammed on top right on top of her. The wind knocked right out of her and she struggled to push the heavy crate off of her chest. As she did this, she couldn't help feeling a little relieved to be free from the suffocating inside of the wooden box. She could finally breathe, or what could possibly be breathing now that the crate was finally off of her. But then came another and another and she was suddenly sandwiched between the chain railing of the boat and the pile of boxes containing her friends. She waved her arms at nearly falling backward and hooked her claws into the nearest wooden box for balance. The rusty length of the metal dug into her back and was the only thing keeping her from plummeting into the foaming black sea below her.

She was lucky. Any more added weight and the chain would snap.

And, of course, her assumption was turned into a reality. In the blink of an eye, a crate bigger than the rest came dashing towards her and the chain broke and they were sent catapulting into the sea. Tigress crashed into the ocean, submerging into the bitterly cold water. She swam as fast as she could to the surface, wincing as crisp wind smacked her in the face. She treaded through the strong currents and waves that tossed her around like a rag doll.

"Gloria! Melman! Marty! Tigress!" She heard Alex call out. She surveyed the rising and falling crescents of water for him and spotted his wooden box a few dozens of meters away from her. And he was drifting farther and farther by the second.

"Alex!" She cried out, paddling her way to the lion. Tigress wasn't the best swimmer, but her desperation and fright were giving her the initiative to remain above the water. She swallowed mouthfuls of saltwater, clawed through the surging and swelling of waves, screamed to Alex as if her life depended on it because... well, it did.

She was almost there. Just a bit further...

A wave suddenly rose and crashed atop of her, sending her spiraling through the dark, murkiness of the sea. Her lungs burned, her arms and legs cried with exhaustion, her eyes stung with salt. Another wave rolled through the deep ocean and she spun out of control, gulping yet more saltwater. And slowly, she began to sink. What little air had remained in her chest left her snout in fat bubbles. Her vision became blurry as the darkness consumed her.

She had never been so afraid in her entire life. Was this it? Was she destined to float into this abyss of nothingness and die a horrible death? To drown in the ocean after everything she had been through?  
Maybe it wasn't so bad. She could slip into the sleep of eternity without ever experiencing what possible horrors laid before her. She could end her life without ever worrying about going back to her miserable time at the roadside zoo. She could finally be free from the nightmares of her childhood.

But... what about Alex? And Gloria and Marty and Melman? They would be crushed if she were to die. And Alex... what would become of him? Who would take care of them? How would they make it through an unpredictable future?

No! She had to live! She must live!

Flapping her arms through swirling winds of cold water and shifting currents with an unprecedented spurt of energy, she burst through the water with the longest, most refreshing inhale of oxygen in her life.

"Tigress?! Tigress!" Alex screamed from the interior of his crate. She swam up to the side of the bobbing box and clumsily latched onto the sides, claws scraping into the newly sodden wood. She panted heftily and closed her eyes for a moment. She felt the wood just above her paws give way. She looked up and saw that the lid had been torn from the crate and carelessly tossed into the mounting waves.

"Tigress!" Alex shouted, emerging from the now torn off roof of his box. He reached pulled her closer, hooking his paws under her arms, hefting her into the crate with him. She plopped onto the dry wood floor with a slap of soaked fur and flesh. She felt as if she had been dragged through these treacherous waters with a rope tied to her foot. She coughed up ingested salt water, gradually curling into a ball for what little heat she had. Alex descended on her, hastily whispering apologies and wrapping her in one of his famous bear hugs. She had no energy in her being to return it. She could only breath shakily and watch through burning eyes at the golden frenzy of a lion.

She was safe. He was safe. They were safe.

"A-Alex..." she stuttered, teeth clattering.

"I'm here. I'm here." He hushed into her clogged ear. He cradled her limp form in his arms, providing much-needed warmth and comfort. Reluctantly, Tigress managed to rope her own arms around her friend and buried her face into the soft hair of his caramel chest. "It's okay. We're okay." He mumbled. The female tiger clung to him for dear life, a stray tear trickling with the water of the sea sponged into her fur.

After what felt like an eternity, the two parted (if only slightly) and looked out to the swelling waves that nearly killed the tiger. She shivered and he tightened his grip on her, caressing the space between her shoulder blades. Three small brown dots floated outwards to the great unknown, dipping up and down through the nauseating bloating of the black ocean. Their friends were sailing away, all in completely different directions. The two witness their friends disappear before their very eyes and Tigress could swear she felt her heart lurch out of her chest as if some greater being had ripped it straight out of her sternum.

"They're... they're... " Alex stammered, electric blue eyes wide, glued to the curving waves. Tigress stayed silent and soon enough, so did he, the realization sinking in much like how the female cat had. The sky started to turn into a deeper shade of grey, the crate swaying to and fro in a sickening manner. They settled in a corner where the lengths of wood supported their backs, clutching one another with a death grip. Alex gurgled a snob into the crook of her neck and she nuzzled into him, another tear escaping her yellow and orange eyes. She blinked it away.

This was worse than anything Tigress could have ever imagined.

Author's Note: And here is yet another chapter. Sorry if it got a little dark, but please tolerate me. By now you know that when I write with emotion and suspense, I most definitely write with emotion and suspense. Please keep reading!


	8. Not So Happy Reunion

The two large cats drifted through the great ocean for hours, the wooden box rolling to and fro like a fisherman's bobber in a giant lake. From what little daylight there was in the grey skies quickly darkened to nightfall, black and blue enveloping them with the moon their only source of light. They stayed there, curled in one another's arms, shivering with cold and fear. Tigress watched as the half-asleep Alex shook in her grasp, a crease forming between his eyebrows. She sighed heavily, ears lowering down to her skull. She continued to weave her paws through his mane, the only thing she could truly feel aside from pure terror.

She couldn't wrap her head around it. They were gone. Their friends were gone forever and they were on their own. It was just like when they were back at the roadside zoo. Abandoned, afraid, and utterly alone. But Tigress wouldn't give up. Alex was counting on her to be his strength, his motivation to move on. Without her, what would become of him? He had never been on his own, and if he ever was he would surely not last long.

"We'll get through this. We'll get through this." She repeated like a repetitive song. It was the only thing she could manage to say without sounding doubtful. And it seemed to sooth the lion, so she continued to chant it. "We'll get through this. We'll get through this."

Suddenly, there was a bump. Then a jolt. The two felines jumped upright at the sudden movement, bewildered. Then the crate turned and started to roll, the captives within sprawling and yelping in surprise within the tight confines. Water splashed through the open roof, coating them in a layer of saltwater. The tumbling picked up pace and fast, rolling and rolling until finally coming to a complete, jarring stop. The two sprang out like fireworks, slamming into solid ground and sliding through a grainy surface. They too stopped in a tangle of limbs, soaked and disoriented. They pulled themselves apart and stood to their feet wobbly. Tigress rubbed the coarse substance from her eyes as Alex coughed up a mouthful of it, brushing it from his tongue frantically.

As soon as her vision cleared, Tigress surveyed their new surroundings. Sand, trees, vegetation, ocean...

Wait!!!

Sand?! Trees?! Vegetation?!

Land! They had found land!

Alex yelped as he too realized where they were now. Towering palm trees stretched towards the sky, their fat leaves gently swaying in the salt-riddled breeze. The sand of the beach burrowed their feet to their ankles and squished through their toes. Waves crashed onto shore in white foam and washed away just as quickly. Land. They had found land.

"Marty?" Alex said thickly, sand-sprinkled tongue hanging out of his mouth. "Melman? Gloria?" He retracted his tongue and continued to survey their new surroundings. Tigress knew he was tired and rather desperate, and was now thinking that their departed friends would wash up on this very piece of land just like they had. It was a long shot and Tigress knew that, but she knew that Alex was going to search for them, no matter how long it took. "Marty?! Melman?! Gloria?!" He started to run, racing along the strip of sand as he called out their friends' names. Tigress followed despite her doubts of said friends finding them. She had to make sure someone kept an eye on Alex. "Marty! Melman! Gloria! Hey, anyone! Hello!"

—————

It took hours until Alex finally settled down, or what seemed to be close to it. The sun was high in the sky, beaming a bright, beautiful day on this tropical landscape. The lion still wandered around, head lolling on his neck tiredly as he still weakly hollered their friends' names. Tigress had hidden herself in a nook under some thick bushes with cool jade leaves to get some form of rest. She was too tired to keep up with the dazed lion as he continued his spree.

"Marty, Melman, Gloria. Gloria, Melman, Marty. Marty, Gelman, Gloria. Marty, Melman." He cooed silently, long arms nearly dragging in the sand. Tigress nestled her head in her arms as she feebly watched him.

As much as she wanted to believe that there was even a fleeting chance of their friends washing ashore, she had to be reasonable. She had to be the cold splash of reality in Alex's haze of fantastical hope. It was a miracle they had even found this sanctuary from the sea, and the possibility of the others following suit would be 1 in a million. In short, she would be the dream crusher. But not yet. She was too tired for this. If she could just get just a few minutes of sleep...

"Morty, Morty, Gelman. Regis. Kelly. Matt, Katie, Al," Alex continued.

Tigress was just about to close her eyes when something else reached her ears besides the golden feline's words. It was faint, but close enough to be deciphered. She jumped up to her feet despite her weariness and emerged from the canopy of green. Alex must've heard it too because he stopped talking and turned in the direction of the new voice.

"Get me out of this thing. Somebody. Hello? Get me out of this thing right now! Hello? Somebody?" The voice cried. The two felines ascended a pile of boulders that were half buried in brown sand and peered over the large rocks. Clumsily stumbling on the beach was a long, tall box-- a crate to be exact--sprouting two pairs of thin legs. Melman's legs.

It was Melman!

"Melman!" Alex and Tigress cheered and raced for their newly discovered friend.

"Alex? Tigress? Is that you?" Melman turned to the sound of their voices.

"Melman, I got you. Hang on! Hang on. I got you. Melman! I got you, buddy," Alex ushered the entombed giraffe, circling Melman as he struggled to find balance. Tigress reached her arms up to steady him, running back and forth and bumping into Alex a couple times, but Melman swayed so much she couldn't grasp him until he finally fell, right on top of Alex. Tigress dug her paw into the spot where Alex was now submerged under the crate and yanked him out with one swift swipe, dropping him as soon as he was free. Alex then sped to the top of the crate and ripped it open, revealing a disheveled but unharmed Melman, or more accurately his head. "Wait a sec, Melman. Wait right there."

"What are you doing?" Melman asked.

"I'm getting you out of the box," He said as he ran to a nearby grove of palm trees.

"Melman, are you okay?" Tigress questioned, bending down to the giraffe's eye level.

"Oh, I'm fine," he said. "I'm just trapped in a box and I have no idea where I am. But in all, I'm great. I'm fantastic. How are you?"

Tigress chuckled at her friend's sarcasm. It was good to see him again. "I'm fine."

Alex was back and was holding what had to be the trunk of a tree that he torn straight out of the ground. "Relax," He said, holding the body of wood in his paws as if he were readying himself to lance.

"Alex?" Melman asked.

It took only a split second for Tigress to realize what he was going to do with the makeshift battering ram. "Alex! Don't do it."

"Giraffe, corner pocket! Here goes nothing!" He yelled and started to run. Tigress jumped to her feet and ran to his side, grabbing the bottom end of the trunk. Alex nearly fell backwards at the sudden stop, but managed to keep on running.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Melman shrieked before them, getting closer and closer as Alex picked up speed.

Tigress was only slowing him down. She planted the heels of her feet deeper in the ground, her claws digging into the bark.

"Hold still!" Alex yelled.

"Alex, stop!" Tigress cried.

"Wait, Alex!" Said Melman.

"Hold still."

"No, come on," Melman continued to screech.

"Here I come!"

Tigress continued to pull as hard as she could, using all of her strength to yield the lion. It worked, sort of. He had slowed down, but not enough to not inflict a fatal impact to Melman's southern regions.

"Stop!" Alex cried again.

"Look! Look! Look! Look! It's Gloria," Melman screamed. "It's Gloria!"

Alex, finally, stopped in his tracks to look behind him, as did Tigress. Peacefully floating on a gentle wave of blue water was a crate, much like Melman's, with Hippopotamus stamped in black font on it's side. Gloria's crate.

"Oh, hey, it is Gloria. Oh, my... " Melman whimpered to himself with a slump of his head, seeing the tip of the trunk was barely an inch from his being.

"Gloria! Gloria!" Alex cheered as he dropped the trunk on the sand with Tigress still attached.

She jerked at her paws till her claws unlatched from the wood and trailed after the lion. The lion leaned down and playfully knocked at the plank of wood when he was suddenly slammed into the air, sailing in a high arc with the side of the crate in his arms. He flew up and up then down, right onto the imprisoned giraffe.

BAM!

They ruptured in an explosion of sand and broken wood, a knotted mess of limbs and splinters. Emerging from the now open crate was Gloria, donned in a seaweed wig, two starfishes on her chest and a crab placed on her lower belly. She posed majestically, swinging the green mass of kelp like it was luscious hair.

"Alrighty, boys, fun's over," She said and the three creatures skittered away at her command.

"Gloria!" Tigress praised, slamming into the hippo with a hug.

"Tigress!" Gloria hurrahed.

"Gloria!" Alex repeated, hugging Gloria with Tigress squished in between the two.

"Whoa!" An all too familiar voice said distantly. They all turned to it and found that surfing on the gorgeous blue waves on the ocean, riding on the back of two dolphins was the black and white figure of Marty. Tigress smiled wildly.

"Alex!" Marty called.

"Marty?!" Gloria squawked.

"Marty!" Alex shrieked.

"Yeah! All right! That's right! Left! Left! Left. No, no, your left! Your left! Your left!" The zebra whooped as he directed his chauffeur duo to the beach. He jumped onto the sand with ease. "Right here's good. I don't have anything on me. I'll have to get you later."

The dolphins squeaked gleefully despite his lack of payment and dove with a splash, their dark figures slicing through the water and into the ocean. "And a uh-uh-uh-huh to you too." Marty shook the spray of water out oh his lean body, from the tips of his mane to the end of his tail and came away completely dry.

"Marty! Marty!" Alex started running to the zebra, grinning madly.

"Alex!" Marty dashed to him, too.

It was like watching a scene from one of those over dramatic films that portrayed two best friends rejoining after a long journey apart. They called one another's names, smiling and running. It would have been heartwarming if Alex hadn't suddenly frowned, snarling through his canines. He was now completely and totally livid, and Marty did a full 360 when he realized this, now flooded with terror.

"Oh, sugar, honey, ice tea," Marty screamed as he ran away. "Hold up!"

"I'm going to kill you! Come here! Don't run away from me!" Alex screeched. He was out for blood, and Marty was the target. Tigress had to intervene, and she did so by chasing the lion down, back and forth, sliding through the sand before grabbing him.

"Calm down!" Marty cried.

"If you keep running, I'm going to just kill you more!" Alex yelled back. Tigress pulled him towards him just as Gloria and Melman came in and embraced the whole lot into one big hug. Tigress was sandwiched between Alex and Gloria, clutching the panting lion who stared daggers at the zebra at his side.

"Oh, look at us. We're all here together. Safe and sound." Gloria chimed as if Alex didn't nearly try to murder Marty.

"Yeah, here we are." Melman voiced. "Where exactly is 'here'?"

Author's Note: I did not intend for this to take so long. I was soooo busy with life I actually forgot about this. Sorry guys. But here's a new chapter. I hope you like it and have a late Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


	9. The Wild

The five animals paused for a moment as they realized this. That despite being together again, they had no idea where they were.

Slowly, the group shuffled a full 180 degrees and faced the miles of greenery lusciously thriving behind them. It was like looking at a postcard of some fancy, tropical paradise cruise. Tall palm trees stretched towards the sky, their thick, vibrant leaves rustling ever so slightly. The sky hovered over the exotic landscape in a near blinding blue, free of clouds. It was absolutely otherworldly, breathtaking.

"San Diego," Melman said, breaking the silence.

The others turned their attention to the giraffe.

"San Diego?" Gloria questioned.

"White sandy beaches, cleverly simulated natural environment, wide-open enclosures," Melman stated as he surveyed their new surroundings more thoroughly. "I'm telling you, this could be the San Diego Zoo. Complete with fake rocks." He tapped the bottom of his leg against a burrowed rock, the flat surface of his hoof clicking musically against the rough object and not at all like a fake stone. "Wow, that looks real." He announced in surprise.

"I'm not so sure." Tigress voiced aloud. "It all looks real to me."

"That's the point of fake, Tigress," Melman said matter of factly. "It's supposed to look real."

"San Diego?" Alex asked, having ignored the tiger and giraffe's conversation. He broke free from the group hug, surveying the jungle scenery with a look of utter remorse. "What could be worse than San Diego?"

"I don't know." Marty returned, much more jovially than the lion. He trotted forward and observed the thick of trees with a much more accepting expression. "This place is crackalackin!" He exclaimed. "Oh, I could hang here. I could hang here."

And just like that, Alex snapped.

"I'll kill you!" Alex screeched, chasing after a now running Marty. Back and forth they raced, sand spraying from their speeding paws and hooves.

"Take it easy!" Marty cried, zipping through Melman's tall legs, Alex hot on his tail.

"Strangle you!"

"Calm down."

"Then bury you, dig you up, clone you and kill your clones." Alex proclaimed as the two now circled Gloria in a cyclone of gold and black and white.

"20-second timeout." Marty shrieked.

"I'll never talk to you again!"

Tigress, now completely fed up with Alex and his overdramatic antics, stormed over to the two animals sprinting and snatched Marty right off of his racing hooves. Gloria did the same with Alex, hefting him above the ground by the underside of his arms. Tigress plopped Marty back onto the ground, scowling at the lion as the striped zebra cowered behind the tiger's figure.

"Now, look," Gloria said through gritted teeth, shaking the male feline aggressively. "We're just going to find the people, get checked in, and have this mess straightened out." She heatedly threw Alex down and was now back on his feet, much more calmer than before.

His tranquil facade didn't last.

"Oh, great. This is just great. San Diego." Alex moaned. "Now I'll have to compete with Shamu and his smug little grin. I can't top that. Can't top it. I'm ruined!" The lion fell to his knees like an angry toddler, his legs half buried in the fine sand, his golden mane gleaming in the bright sun. "I'm done. I'm out of the business. It's your fault, Marty!" He whirled back, pointing an accusing finger at his now ex-friend. "You've ruined me."

Tigress couldn't believe just how ridiculous Alex was being. He couldn't see how grateful he should be that they were back together after an entire day of thinking that they were all alone. That aside from being possibly washed up in a zoo across the country, they had their friends. They were reunited with their closest companions, and all Alex could worry about was the demise of his career. Tigress was more than happy to see them all safe and sound on this island, and Alex was the one being a selfish little-

What was that?

Tigress' ears twitched at the distant sound. It was faint but distinct.

"Come on, Alex. Do you honestly think I intended all of this to happen?" Marty asked. Tigress ignored him, trying to concentrate on where that noise was coming from. "You want me to say that I'm sorry? Is that what you want? Okay, I'm…"

"Shh." Alex suddenly hissed, only turning to the zebra to shush him with a finger pressed to his snout.

Could he hear it too?

Tigress took a few steps forward, standing above the lion. Their gazes remained steadfast on the foliage in front of him, his dark ears aiming forwards; straining, focusing.

He could hear it!

"He just shushed me," Marty said in surprise.

"Marty, you've got to be just a little bit more und…" Gloria started to say.

"Shh." Tigress hushed.

"Don't you shush me." Gloria retorted angrily.

"Do you hear that?" Alex questioned, turning to the tiger. She nodded vigorously. The others now stepped up in interest, trying to see and hear what had grabbed the two large cats attention.

The group of five now raced through the thick jungle, the blasting music echoing through the crocheted vines and underbrush.

"I hear it now!" Marty yelled over the pounding beat.

"Where there's music, there's people." Gloria said next.

"And where there's people, there's a way back to the zoo." Tigress voiced.

"Go right to the head honcho." Alex interjected.

"A sidewalk would be nice." Melman piped in.

The jungle floor under their hooves and paws wasn't so bad in Tigress' opinion. It was just… different. The underlying plants and open roots of trees were like an entangled basket of snakes, and it was a struggle not to trip over one rope of vinery after the next. Tigress kept one eye on the path before her and the other on her footing. She wasn't planning on tripping on anything.

"Yeah, what a dump." Gloria commented.

"They should call it the San Di-lame-o Zoo." Alex said childishly. Tigress couldn't suppress the eye roll she directed at the lion. "First, they tell you, 'We got this great open plan thing. Let animals run wild.' Next thing, flowers in your hair, everybody's hugging everybody."

"And you know this how, exactly?" Tigress questioned, giving him a queer yet half-hearted look.

"Look what happened in the '60s and '70s." He returned.

"This place kind of grows on you." Marty interrupted, cutting off Alex. "This way, guys! Come on!" Marty exclaimed as he passed under a low hanging branch. The others passed by it with no trouble, with Gloria holding it up and out of their way. When she released it, it flew back in a flash of brown and green only to slam into Alex's face with a resonating _thwack_. He fell straight onto his back, clutching his nose. Tigress ran back to his side where she helped him sit up.

"What the?" Alex cried out, standing to his feet. Before Tigress could ask if he was alright, he stumbled forward, groaning under his clasped paws, trying to catch up to the others. He then suddenly tripped on a large rock and hopped on one leg, clutching his already swelling foot, and then again as he stepped on a thorn riddled briar. He then stumbled right into a curtain of a spider web, frantically swiping at the silky strands of white, crying out in disgust as he wiped at his head. In his hysteria, he ran straight into a tree, his head connecting to the trunk with a sort of _clunking_ sound. He tried to regain his balance, his eyes crossed and his arms swaying at his sides only to have his legs taken out by a nearby log. And with this whole scene taking place, it wouldn't have been complete if the tree from earlier hadn't tumbled onto the lion sprawled on his backside.

Oh, no!" Alex screamed when the leafy top slammed onto his head.

Tigress had to physically restrain herself from groaning in aggravation. It was like watching a goofy cartoon character from those black and white kids' television. Every step he took was like having a rake shoot up into his face over and over again. Yet a part of her was withholding a boisterous laugh threatening to surpass her black lips. It wasn't Alex being inflicted with pain that made it hilarious, it was witnessing the famous and mighty King of New York so out of his element. Instead of strutting around like a pompous peacock, he was fumbling too and fro like a newborn cub running without having learned to walk first.

She marched her way over to the lion who was wrestling with the groves of palm leaves and bananas and with her brute strength, she hefted the fat trunk into her arms and tossed the whole tree to the side. It landed with a whooshing crash a yard away.

"What'd you do that for?" Alex barked out, sitting up. "I could've moved it myself."

"You're welcome." Said Tigress as she extended a paw for him to take. Almost begrudgingly, he did, clasping on as she lifted him up. She heard him grumble an incoherent "thank you", but decided to not pester him about it. The poor guy did just have a run in with a number of the jungle's unfriendly subjects.

They continued forward, the funky music still present, if not much louder. Their friends were long gone.

They must've made it to the people by now.

The tiger had to keep a slow pace since Alex was recovering from a swollen foot and the high chance of a recent concussion. He continued to mumble under his breath, picking out tidbits of spider web from his fur, trying his hardest to hide a limp. In the distance, Tigress could see the other three gathered in the front of a hedge of some sort. The music had stopped.

"I hate spiderwebs. Yeah, thanks a lot, guys." Alex called out as they approached. "Thanks for waiting up. I really appreciate it." The trio turned to the two felines, but Alex walked up and past the giant fronds, revealing an opening. The grass was littered with flowers that glowed pink and orange, and in the center sat half a dozen or so of cat-like creatures with ugly green eyes and lolling tongues. They seemed to be stalking a small creature that heavily resembled a chipmunk.

Tigress got the notion that these animals were in no means surrounding the helpless critter with pleasant intentions. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, her claws poised in the tips of her paws. She glared at them with red eyes. She was ready to fight if they made a single move to attack. A few noticed and quivered under her gaze, the others focused on the lion.

"Hi." Alex greeted. "We just got in from New York, and we're looking for a supervisor. Because we've been sitting on that beach there for hours, and nobody's even bothered to show up."  
"Alex," Tigress beckoned. "I don't think…" But that's when she saw it and froze immediately, her spine straightening out like a metal rod. Crawling up on Alex's back with long, delicate legs and a bulbous abdomen patched with orange was the biggest spider she had ever seen. How it got to be there and how she hadn't noticed it was unbeknownst to her, but what she did know was that Alex hadn't seen it. At least not yet.

"I don't know how things are normally run around here, but there's been some sort of major screw-up, which is cool." The lion continued to talk, unaware of the animal scaling his shoulder blades. "If you could point us towards the administrative offices, we'll…" He slowly rounded his gaze to his backside, either from their conjoined stares penetrating his senses or the tips of the spider's legs had finally registered in his mind. He came face to face with the animal and his eyes dilated to dots.

"Well, howdy-do." The spider greeted cheerfully.

Alex jumped a full three feet in the air and cried out at the top of his lungs, waving his arms and shrieking. After that it was a blur of cries and screams as Gloria furiously wacked Alex with a long stick she had picked up, everyone crying out in various phrases such as "Spider! Spider! Spider on my back!" and "Come on, Gloria. Get it." That is, all except Tigress. As she witnessed complete mayhem unfold as her hippopotamus friend beat the living daylights out of the lion, she had seen the spider quickly skedaddle and out of harm's way. She huffed a heavy sigh and trudged forward where, with questionably graceful ease, plucked the stick straight out of Gloria's hands right before she landed another blow.

"Enough! Enough with the stick." Alex cried after the last blow. Tigress tossed the stick to the side and pulled him to his feet.

"Did I get it?" Asked Gloria. "I think I got it."

"I think she got it." Melman commented.

"Is it still on me?" Alex said as he swayed in his feet, brushing himself off. "I hate spiders." Alex commented, wincing as he straightened up, shivering in disgust at the word "spiders".

"It's OK. It's gone." Gloria reassured.

"Gone" was definitely the word, Tigress thought to herself. The female tiger looked up and saw that the predatory creatures from before had vanished and all that remained was the fuzzy brown rodent curled on the jungle floor. It watched her with round eyes, shaking with fear behind its bushy tail.

"Guys." She summoned. "We have an audience."

The others turned their attention to the lone critter, unsure of what to make of it. "Hi there." Marty said in a friendly manner.

Alex snapped at him almost instantaneously. "You let me handle it. Alex handles it. Marty does nothing." Alex hissed through bared teeth. After a moment, Alex took a step forward and bent over to eye level with the small being. "Hi there!" The lion announced, grinning from ear to ear. But Tigress saw that her lion friend's large canines were on full display and the creature before him observed them with fearful eyes. It began to cry, terrified at the golden feline's greetings."Oh, jeez. Sorry." Alex yelped.

"Oh, Alex, what'd you do?" Gloria asked.

"Stop. Stop. It's OK. It's OK." Alex hurriedly hushed. "I'm just a silly... just a silly lion." Alex leaned down even closer and waved his paws at the sides of his head resulting in the creature erupting in tears. "Oh, jeez!" Alex screeched, jumping back as the brown animal wailed.

"Alex," Tigress nudged him aside. "You have to be gentle with him. He's frightened." The tiger lowered herself onto her knees, the critter trembling with sobs across her. "Oh, you poor little thing." The thing peered up at her and with large, hazelnut eyes that watered with spilling tears, his pupils the size of giant marbles. Her heart ached in her chest at the sight. "Did he scare you?" She asked it quietly. It nodded ever so slightly, calming down from his fit. "He did?" She felt the corners of her muzzle quirk up into a small smile. She stretched out her arms to him, slowly and deliberately as to not come across as aggressive. She didn't want to frighten him anymore than he already was. The creature crawled into her paws after a moment and she caressed him to her chest. She ran a thumb over his head, his ears flicking against her sheathed claw. He nuzzled into her, pressing his tear-streaked cheeks against the cream-colored fur of her sternum.

"Aww, look at you." Gloria cooed as she came up to Tigress' side.

"They are cute from a reasonable distance." Melman commented.

"Aren't you the sweetest little thing." Gloria said as she tickled the creature's fluffy belly. It returned her actions with cute, bubbly giggles that made Tigress' smile broader. "I just want to dunk him in my coffee."

Just then, an explosion of noise sounded off and the group jumped. Coming at them from all sides, from the trees and bushes and all of the shadows of the jungle, were furry creatures who cheered and jumped and danced around them like a crowd of excitable fans. The critter wriggled out of Tigress's grasp, but the tiger hardly noticed since she was too distracted by the horde of newcomers blithely cornering them. An echoing horn went off and the creatures silenced, turning their attention to a single animal who blew furiously into a seashell much too large for him. He set it down.

"Presenting your royal highness, our illustrious King Julien XIII, self-proclaimed lord of the lemurs, et cetera. Hooray, everybody." He recited quickly and monotonously as he stepped aside. Emerging from a set of flamboyant fronds was a tall, grey being who wore a wooden hat upon his fuzzy head. His long tail swayed behind him in all its black and white wonder. He leapt up in a full flip and landed atop a tower of other rodent-like much like himself.

"He's got style." Marty said, clearly intrigued.

"What is he, like, king of the guinea pigs?" Alex retorted sarcastically.

"I think it's a squirrel." Returned Melman.

"I think it's… a lemur." Tigress inquired.

"A lemur?" Alex asked. "What's a lemur?"

Before Tigress could answer, the leaning tower of miniature fuzz balls strutted forward. "Welcome, giant pansies." The critter on top proclaimed. "Please feel free to bask in my glow."

"Nope. Definitely a squirrel." Alex confirmed.

"Yep. Squirrel." Melman agreed. Tigress would have as well if she didn't know that it was most certainly a lemur.

Wait! If it was a lemur, would that mean…

"We thank you with enormous gratitude for chasing away the foosa." The "squirrel" said.

"The "whossa"?" Marty replied confusedly.

"The foosa." The lemur corrected. "They annoy us by trespassing, interrupting our parties and ripping our limbs off."

She knew it! Those things, the foosa, had been here to devour these creatures, especially the small one she had encountered moments before.

"Good." Alex said, almost impatiently. "We're trying to find out where the people are, so…"

"What big teeth you have." The lemur who had previously blown through the seashell prompted. He stood on another skyscraper of lemurs beside what had to be his ruler. "Man! And your lady friend's too." He motioned to Tigress.

Lady what?!

"Oh! I uh… she's…" Alex stuttered, caught by surprise. Tigress was in no better shape. Her eyes bugged out of her head and she swore that her neck burned with an uncomfortable warmth.

"Shame on you, Maurice." The ring-tailed lemur spoke aloud. "Can you not see that you have insulted the freak and his girlfriend?"

Girlfriend?!

Tigress was sure that if she blushed any more under her coat of orange fur, she would explode.

"You must tell me, who the heck are you?"

"I-I'm Alex." The lion fumbled with his words before composing himself. "The Alex. And this is Gloria, Marty, Melman, a Tigress." He absentmindedly indicated to his animal friends.

"And just where are you giants from?"

"We're from New York and…"

With a wave of his arms, the hat-don lemur interrupted the large cat right in the middle of his sentence. He turned to his fellow lemurs. "All hail the New York Giants!"

"New York giants!" They shouted demeaningly, once more becoming a raging throng of hectic, fur-covered individuals in a mass of craziness. The five larger animals gathered in a circle, their heads closed in around each other to block out the roaring bouts and clapping of the lemur community.

"Is this some sort of inbreeding program?" Melman asked.

"Off topic, Melman." Tigress quipped. "We need a plan of action."

"I say we just ask these bozos where the people are." Alex suggested.

"Excuse me." A voice suddenly said. Looking down at the source, Tigress saw that it was the crowned lemur lazily sprawled under Alex's legs. "We bozos have the people, of course."

Alex screamed in surprise at the sight and skidded away from the creature from below him. "Hey, the bozos have the people." He exclaimed. "Oh, well, great. Good. Phew."

"They're up there." He pointed upwards with a tiny finger. They all looked up and were stunned to find that there was a person up there. Well, that is the skeleton of a person. Which was suspended from the strings of a fraying parachute caught in the bowels of a giant tree. It grinned toothily down at them, it's empty eye sockets and exposed bones causing Tigress' jaw to drop wide open.

"Don't you love the people? Not a very lively bunch, though."

You can say that again.

"Wow." Alex replied quietly, shocked just as much as the rest of them were. "So do you have any live people?"

The lemur thought for a moment. "No. Only dead ones. I mean, if we had a lot of live people here, it wouldn't be called the wild, would it?"

"The wild?" Tigress and Marty proclaimed in unison.

Did he just say "the wild" because there was absolutely no way they could actually be in the wild?!

"Whoa. Hold up there a second, fuzz bucket." Alex intervened. "You mean, like, the 'live in a mud hut, wipe yourself with a leaf' type wild?" The lion ventured.

"Who wipes?" Ring tail asked rhetorically.

One, ew. Two, the wild! This was the wild. The real uncivilized, animal-infested, uninhabited-by-humans wild? Tigress couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe it!

"Oy vey." Said Melman in disgust.

"Oy vey!" The giant crowd of lemurs screamed.

"Oy vey, everybody! Oy vey!" The hat-clad creature squealed with joy.

The wild! This was the wild!

"Could you excuse me for a moment?" Said Alex before taking off in a blur of brown and gold, zooming through the jungle foliage in the blink of an eye.

Author's Note: Thank God for that boost of motivation! I have put this off for so long it's not even funny. I don't know what happened. I would blame this whole COVID-19 business, and it is partly true, but if I'm being honest I must say that I just lost interest in this story. I don't even know why. But I am committed to this story and will finish it as well as others to come. Thank you all for your patience and tolerance with my lack of writing. It means the world to me when you give me your support and encouragement. Thank you guys and as always stay tuned!


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